Decision details

For Leader of the Council to consider the adoption of Joint Procedure and Staff Guidance for Unreasonable and Unreasonably Persistent Complainants

Joint Procedure and Staff Guidance for Unreasonable and Unreasonably Persistent Complainants adopted by Eastbourne Borough Council.

As part of the Joint Transformation Programme Eastbourne Borough Council (EBC) and Lewes District Council (LDC) have been looking at their policies and procedures in order to bring them up-to-date and make them more consistent. This initiative will enable our staff to work more effectively, consistently and provide a better service across both areas.

As part of this work, we have reviewed Eastbourne Borough Council, Lewes District Council and Eastbourne Homes’ processes for managing contact with unreasonable and unreasonably persistent complainants, combining best practice across both into a single shared procedure and staff guidance document.

Unreasonable and unreasonably persistent complainants can be disruptive to effective service delivery to themselves and others, and take up disproportionate resources. Having a single approach to managing these situations is important in ensuring a consistent and efficient process.

As EBC, LDC and EHL previously all adhered to the Local Government Ombudsman’s (LGO) or the Housing Ombudsman’s (HO) definitions of “unreasonable” and “unreasonably persistent” complainants no substantive change was required in how the partners approach these situations.