When a council restricts contact or labels behaviour unreasonable

What this guide covers

Ordinary council complaints in England are not a single statutory appeal system. The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman's Complaint Handling Code is issued as advice and guidance under section 23(12A) of the Local Government Act 1974. Councils should consider it when designing policies and responding to complaints, but it does not displace statutory complaint, review or appeal schemes. The practical job is to identify what route applies, preserve any external deadline, and keep the service problem separate from the complaint-handling problem.

What a council should do before restricting contact, how restrictions should be reasoned and reviewed, and what they must not become.

The points that usually decide the case

• Councils can manage genuinely unreasonable behaviour, but a restriction should respond to conduct rather than simply to persistence, disagreement or the complexity of a complaint.
• LGSCO guidance says a written restriction should normally identify the actions considered unreasonable, give examples, state the monitoring period, explain review arrangements and consequences, and address equality and human-rights considerations.
• Restrictions should be proportionate to the behaviour and preserve a workable route for essential contact, new service requests and emergencies.
• LGSCO guidance says restrictions should be reviewed at least every 12 months.
• Ask how to complain about the restriction itself and whether reasonable adjustments have been considered.

Common situations

Start with the correct route

Before complaining, write down the council function, the act or omission you challenge, the outcome you want and whether a separate statutory review or appeal exists. Corporate complaints are a safety net for service and administrative failures; they are not a substitute for every appeal. If a council declines to accept a complaint, it should explain why and signpost the relevant external route.

Build the complaint around issues, not volume

Number the issues. For each one state what happened, what should have happened, the evidence, the resulting injustice and the remedy sought. This makes omissions visible at Stage 1 and gives Stage 2 a defined task. Keep new, unrelated problems separate unless combining them would genuinely make the investigation clearer.

Keep actions and the complaint running in parallel

A complaint response does not have to wait until every remedial action is complete. Likewise, logging a complaint should not stop the service team fixing the underlying problem. Track both: the complaint deadline and the outstanding operational action.

Escalation is about what remains unresolved

At Stage 2, identify the unanswered or wrongly answered points, factual errors, overlooked evidence, unexplained policy departures and inadequate remedy. The LGSCO Code says the Stage 2 reviewer should not be the same person who considered Stage 1 and the final response should normally be issued within 20 working days of acknowledgement.

Restriction of contact is not the same as rejection of the complaint

Councils can adopt policies for unreasonable, persistent or abusive contact, but restrictions should be aimed at the behaviour causing the problem and should not be used simply because a person is persistent, knowledgeable or strongly disagrees with the authority. A contact plan might limit channels, frequency or a single point of contact while substantive service issues still require appropriate handling.

If restrictions are imposed, ask for the decision in writing, the policy relied on, the behaviour said to justify the restriction, its duration, the permitted contact route and any review mechanism. Keep the merits of the underlying complaint separate. That makes it possible to challenge a disproportionate restriction without turning every future service issue into an argument about conduct.

Evidence cuts both ways

Keep your own communications professional and issue-focused. Repetitive emails, personal allegations and unnecessary copying can distract from an otherwise strong complaint. Equally, if the council characterises ordinary persistence as unreasonable, a clean chronology showing unanswered questions, missed callbacks or repeated broken promises can provide important context.

Evidence to keep

Build the record as you go. The most useful evidence for this topic usually includes:

• original complaint and proof of receipt
• published complaint policy and the version/date relied on
• Stage 1/Stage 2 acknowledgements and target dates
• all substantive responses
• a numbered issue-and-answer schedule
• evidence of the practical injustice and remedy requested

Keep originals and, where a document is later replaced online, retain the version that actually applied to your case. For calls, a contemporaneous note made immediately afterwards is far more useful than trying to reconstruct the conversation months later.

How to put the issue in writing

Use a short issue structure rather than one long narrative. Start with the decision, failure or service request and its reference number. Then number each complaint point. For each point identify the relevant date, the evidence, what you say was wrong, the practical effect and the outcome you want.

If the council has given different explanations, quote each material position with its date and ask it to reconcile them. If a response omits an issue, say “Issue 3 was not answered” and restate only that issue. This produces a record that can be audited at Stage 2 or by an external body without forcing the reader to infer what remains disputed.

When to escalate

If the council has reached its final local response, check whether LGSCO is the appropriate external body. The Ombudsman is not a general Stage 3 merits appeal: frame the case around fault, injustice and remedy. Where a statutory appeal exists, protect that route first.

Escalation should not become an endless email chain. Once the authority has given a final response, or the relevant procedure is unreasonably stalled, preserve the final position and use the external route that has jurisdiction. Keep any legal limitation or statutory appeal deadline under separate review.

What this route cannot guarantee

A complaint can expose poor administration, require a reasoned response and support a remedy, but it does not guarantee the technical, enforcement or discretionary outcome you prefer. Where an authority has lawful discretion, the key question is usually whether it gathered the relevant evidence, applied the correct framework, gave intelligible reasons and acted without avoidable delay.

Likewise, an Ombudsman recommendation, statutory appeal, civil claim, data-protection complaint and information request perform different jobs. ConsumerWise links them where they overlap but keeps the legal tests separate.