Complainants or anyone acting on their behalf may be deemed to be vexatious or persistent if one or more of the following applies:
- Refusing to specify the grounds of a complaint, despite help from the Council.
- Refusing to co-operate with the Council’s ‘Let Us Know’ procedure but still wanting the complaint resolved.
- Making what appear to be groundless complaints about the staff dealing with the complaint and looking to have them replaced.
- Taking an excessive ‘scattergun’ approach – complaining officially to the Council as well as raising the same complaint with other bodies such as MP/councillor/police/solicitors/Local Government Ombudsman.
- Changing the basis of the complaint as the investigation moves forward and/or denying earlier statements.
- Raising trivial information and expecting this to be taken into account or raising lots of detailed but unimportant questions and insisting they are answered.
- Electronically recording meetings and conversations without the prior knowledge and consent of the other people involved.
- Making excessive demands on staff while a complaint is being dealt with.
- Sending a high volume of letters, emails and/or phone calls.
- Registering repeat complaints after the complaint has been fully investigated and completed.
- Refusing to accept the final decision of a complaint.
- Refusing to accept a complaint is outside the remit of the complaints procedure.
- Persistently contact the Council through different routes about the same issue.
- Someone who is not looking to resolve a dispute but is looking to cause unnecessary difficulties or problems to the Council.
- Refusing to accept that matters aren’t within the Council’s power to investigate if the matter is the responsibility of another organisation.
If a complainant isn’t happy with the outcome of their complaint and wishes to challenge it, this is not necessarily grounds to label them as ‘unreasonably persistent’.
This policy will be used as a last resort once all measures have been taken to resolve issues under the Council’s complaints procedure. We will make sure we have communicated appropriately with the complainant and make sure no new information that will affect the decision has been put forward.
The complainant will receive one written warning confirming that if their actions/behaviour continues, it will result in the Council treating them as an ‘unreasonably persistent complainant’ and future contact may be restricted.