Complaints, Compliments and Suggestions

Overview

Understanding your experience with Horsham Rural City Council is important to us and we welcome all feedback. Complaints, compliments and suggestions for improvement help us to improve our services and the way we conduct our business.

Customer Commitment Charter

Horsham Rural City Council is committed to providing the highest possible level of service to our community and customers. We provide an extensive and varied range of services to the community. We value our customers and are committed to providing a high standard of service and consistency in service delivery.

Our organisational values are our guide to how we will achieve exceptional customer service:

Flexibility - We are adaptable to changing circumstances

Accountability - We are responsible for our behaviour and actions

Integrity - We are ethical, transparent and honest in our conduct

Respect - We value diversity and appreciate others

Our Customer Commitment Charter(PDF, 582KB) and (PDF, 1MB)Customer Service Standards Procedure(PDF, 1MB) set out Council's commitments to our customers. 

Complaints

When Council hasn't provided a service to the standard you expect, or there has been a delay in responding to your service request, we encourage you to contact us.   

Our Complaint Resolution policy aims to ensure that you can raise your complaint easily and with confidence that we will listen and respond to your concerns in a transparent, fair and consistent way.

When handling your complaint, we will use the following four-tiered approach:

Step 1 - Frontline Resolution: Our frontline staff will receive your complaint, assess it and resolve it immediately if possible.

Step 2 - Investigation, if required:  If our frontline staff can't resolve your complaint immediately, they'll refer it to the relevant Departmental Manager.

Step 3 - Internal Review:  If you're unhappy with the process or outcome of the frontline resolution/investigation, you can request an internal review by the relevant Director.

Step 4 - Access to External Review:  We aim to resolve 100% of issues raised, however, if you're unhappy with the process or the outcome of the internal review, we'll inform you of any available external review options. In the majority of cases, we'll refer you to the Victorian Ombudsman for an independent review.

Our Complaint Resolution Flowchart(PDF, 184KB) provides more details about how this process works in practice.  

Complaints to Council can be made by:

Complaint Resolution Policy and Procedure

Online Feedback Form 

Complaint Resolution Flowchart(PDF, 184KB)

Making it easy for you to report wrongdoing in local government

My local Council: if something is not right, who do I complain to? is a video that explains which integrity agency you can complain to about issues and suspected wrongdoing with Council matters, Councillors and local government officials.

Council encourages and welcomes your feedback. It helps us to improve our services and the way we conduct our business. 

Compliments and Suggestions

If you have a compliment or suggestion for improvement, we'd like to hear from you. Your feedback is important as it helps us to continually improve our services to the community.

Compliments and suggestions can be made by: