If you are reporting something for the first time, we need an opportunity to resolve it before you submit a complaint. Rather than making a complaint that can take time to progress, you can report a problem. By reporting a problem, we can begin resolving the issue immediately. You can use a report a problem to report issues such as :

• Missed refuse collection
• Road and pavement problems
• Illegal front garden parking
• And lots more as well...

Report It 

If you need to complain about one of the services below, please visit their pages to find out the process:

Adult Social Care Complaints

Childrens Social Care Complaints

Complain about a School 

Challenge a Penalty Charge Notice 

Appeal or Revise a Planning Application 

Dispute a Housing Benefit Decision

Complaints about Councillors

Information you need to provide

We’d like to know:

• what service are you complaining about
• what you think the Council did wrong
• what you think the Council should do to put things right
• the date the problem you’re complaining about occurred or you became aware of it

Help us to help you by providing any relevant dates, names of staff and copies of relevant letters or other documents to support your complaint.

Please note that we can’t usually look at a complaint if you have left it for an unreasonable amount of time. This can vary depending on the matter, but is likely to be in the region of 6 months since knowing about the problem.

Complain form

Telephone 0208 215 3000

Email complaints@lbbd.gov.uk

Please see our complaints policy for further information. 

Our updated policy states zero tolerance towards work-related violence and aggression, focusing on persistent, vexatious, and unreasonable behaviour in complaints and information requests, focusing on:

• Strictly prohibiting abusive communications, emphasising professionalism and courtesy.
• Quickly addressing misconduct like misuse of channels or staff mistreatment. 
• Promptly responding to threatening behaviours to protect staff, potentially involving legal measures.

Our aim is to make sure staff are safe when delivering a complaints service efficiently without compromising openness to constructive feedback.

Persistent, vexatious & unreasonable behaviour complainants policy (PDF, 345.79 KB)

Find out what happens after you complain.

Complaints procedure

Please complete this form to tell us how satisfied you are with our complaints process.

LGSCO and HO Report (PDF, 168.8 KB)

Annual Complaints Report 2024-25 (PDF, 338.65 KB)

Final Adult Social Care Report 24-25 (PDF, 268.15 KB)

Final Children's Social Care Complaints Report 23-24 (PDF, 3.93 MB)

MRC Response to Annual Complaints Report (PDF, 89.81 KB))

Committee Report - Corporate Complaints 2023-24 (PDF, 345.96 KB)

Complaints Quarterly - October to December 2024 (PDF, 1.93 MB)

Quarterly Report - Jan to Mar 2025 (PDF, 1.95 MB)

If you have concerns about how your personal data has been processed by the Council, this page explains how to raise your concern with us. 

Data protection complaints are not processed under the corporate complaints process. The Council’s Data Protection Officer (‘DPO’) is tasked with monitoring compliance with the UK GDPR and other data protection law, and this includes investigating complaints. The DPO is also the Council’s point of contact with the regulator (the Information Commissioner) who the data subject can engage with if they remain dissatisfied. 

What is a data protection complaint? 

You can raise a complaint if you are concerned about the way in which your personal data has been handled.  Concerns could include:

• how your personal information has been processed.  This includes how it is collected, used, shared or stored
• delays or other issues in relation to your Subject Access Request or other rights requests
• concerns about the accuracy of the information we hold about you or, or how long we keep it
• concerns about whether there may have been a data breach of your personal data or a security issue affecting your data
• concerns about profiling or automated decision making  (although we do not do profiling and do very little automated decision making under the GDPR definition)

What is not a data protection complaint?

• general service complaints
• complaints about delays or dissatisfaction with a service

For more information on these other types of complaints, you can submit your complaint online.

How to make a complaint

You can raise your concern in the following ways:

• contact the Data Protection Officer at email dpo@lbbd.gov.uk
• post to the address of FAO Data Protection Officer, Barking Town Hall, 1 Town Square, Barking, IG11 7LU
• the quickest, and environmentally friendly way to raise a concern is to submit it electronically.  We will respond to your concern by email, unless you specify otherwise
• if you do write to us by post, please include an email address, so that we can email our response to you

What information do we need from you?

We need:

• your name and contact details
• state what your concern is
• the date when the issue occurred
• anything that helps us understand and look into the issue (e.g., reference numbers or evidence)

What happens after you contact us

When you raise a concern, we will send you a confirmation with a reference number. The law says that we must acknowledge your complaint within 30 days but we will usually acknowledge within 5 working days.  

Investigating your concerns

We will:

• review your concern and the information you have provided to us
• contact you should we require further information from you  
• look into your concern and make necessary enquiries
• endeavour to reply to you without undue delay
• and if possible, resolve your concern.  If we find that the council has acted correctly, we will explain why

Outcome

When our investigation is complete, we will explain:

• what we looked at
• how we investigated
• what we found
• what action, if any, we have taken or will take 

Please note: Responses to any SAR complaints will initially be provided by the appropriate Team dealing with SAR requests. 

If you remain unhappy

If you are not satisfied with our response, you can raise your concern with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK’s independent data protection regulator. Details of how to contact the ICO will be provided in our response to you.