Customer feedback
Our Customer Promise
Our Customer Promise has been developed with staff and customers to set out realistic and achievable customer service standards, which are underpinned by a clear set of customer values.
Our Customer Values
We will:
Be responsive and consistent - listen and understand your needs, take ownership of your enquiry, answer your query or deal with your problem as soon as possible, and keep you up to date with what we are doing.
Treat you with fairness and respect - be friendly, polite and helpful, and get you to the right person quickly, say sorry if we get things wrong and do our best to put it right.
Be transparent and accountable - use plain language when we communicate with you, provide clear, complete and accurate information about our services, be honest about what we can and can’t do, and explain our decisions.
Provide value for money services and knowledgeable staff - do what we say we will do to a high standard, make best use of our resources, including making it easier to access our information and services via online and digital channels 24 hours a day everyday of the year.
Our Customer Service Standards
By social media, email and electronic forms on the website
- Your enquiry via social media, email or electronic form will be directed to the right team within one working day.
- We will send an acknowledgement so you know we’ve received your message (this might be an automatic response) and will reply within 10 working days.
- If we can’t resolve everything we will write within 10 working days to let you know what we will do next and when you can expect a full reply.
On the phone
- We will answer the phone promptly, either personally or using an answerphone service. If we are exceptionally busy it may take us longer than usual to answer your call. Where possible, we will tell you of the wait time.
- We will greet you with the name of the person you are speaking to and the name of the service so you know you’ve reached the right place.
- If we need to transfer you to someone else, we’ll explain why and give you their name and their telephone number.
- If you leave an answerphone message, we will respond to you to let you know we’ve received your message.
By letter
- We will reply within 10 working days. If we can’t resolve everything we will write to let you know we have received your letter and let you know what we will do next and when you can expect a full reply.
Visiting us
- Wherever possible we will make our buildings accessible to everyone.
- We will make your visit as comfortable as possible and will provide a welcoming, clean and safe environment at our offices.
Complaints
- If you tell us we have got something wrong we will investigate it impartially and fairly.
- We’ll acknowledge your complaint within 5 working days and will aim to complete our investigation within 10 working days.
- Where we’ve got something wrong we will do our best to put it right and make sure it doesn’t happen again.
Further information
Social media
We also have a policy for how we respond to social media.
How to contact us
You may want to speak to someone about a service you are receiving. There are details on how to contact us online, by phone or if you are visiting.
Customer Feedback and Experience
We proactively gather feedback from our customers to ensure that we are listening, learning, and improving your experience of our services.
Your feedback directly shapes the way we work through highlighting what we are doing right and where we need to make changes to improve your experience.
By sharing the actions we’ve taken in response to your feedback, we aim to be transparent about our continuous improvement and demonstrate how your voice helps us deliver better, more customer-focused services.
Information regarding actions taken specifically within Children's Services can be found in their 'You said, we did' annual reports.
Listening and Improving: Changes We’ve Made
- Helping to direct customers appropriately
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- Where customers leave contact information within their feedback, teams have been able to help by contacting customers directly. For example, we have been able to redirect queries to the relevant authority so that our customers get the help they need.
- Improvements to our website
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- A customer commented that they wanted pictures and descriptions of the types of registration certificates we offer, e.g. silver plated, commemorative. This information was on our website but has been linked to more relevant pages as a result.
- The Waste Team have added new items to the guidance on what can be recycled).
- A customer asked whether the offices at Hastings Register Office were on the ground floor, so the service were able to add further information to location pages about accessibility.
- A customer commented that under the links for marriage and civil partnership ceremony, they wanted to see the scripts for the ceremonies. This has been useful feedback showing a demand for these to be published and this is under consideration.
- We have used your feedback to fix broken links or errors on our webpages and used this information to ensure information is easy to find by considering appropriate navigation routes on the website.
- Feedback is used by services to make updates to FAQ pages across our website.
- Household Waste Recycling Site booking system
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- Feedback has allowed the Waste Team to monitor the impact of their recent website redesign.
- Additionally, they have been able to monitor changes in feedback regarding the Household Waste Recycling Site booking system over time. The system initially received negative feedback from customers when it was first introduced. However, since the system has been in place for several months, they now see an increase in positive comments.
- Improving our feedback
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- To ensure that we collect reliable and accurate feedback from our customers, we identified and fixed an issue with bots impacting our website feedback. We know that the feedback on our website is now only from real customers and we can respond appropriately.
- We have added option buttons to our feedback surveys so you can more easily provide information about your experience. Having this extra detail about your experience has allowed us to focus on improving the things you are most concerned about.
Learning from Complaints
We also learn from the complaints and compliments we receive. Please see our Annual Complaints reports below:
Last updated: 1 June 2026
What service does your complaint relate to?
Before you submit a complaint
We may not handle all feedback we receive as a complaint. If something has gone wrong with the service you've received, please first contact the team delivering the service and give them your feedback. They must be given the opportunity to put things right. After you’ve spoken to the service, if you are still unhappy follow the links below to find out how to make a complaint about the relevant service:
Corporate complaints process and policy
The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman provides Local Authorities with the Complaint Handling Code which informs our complaints process. The Corporate Complaints Team handle any complaints outside of Children's Services and Adult Social Care and Health.
Before you submit a complaint
We may not handle all feedback we receive as a complaint. If something has gone wrong with the service you've received, please first contact the team delivering the service and give them your feedback. They must be given the opportunity to put things right. This is the quickest way to sort out many issues. If you haven’t done this, please contact them and explain:
- what has gone wrong
- how you’d like it to be fixed
- what you need and how they can help you
You have spoken to the team providing the service and still have concerns
If the service is not able to resolve your concerns you can make a complaint. Please ensure you tell us:
- what happened and when
- how you would like us to fix it.
After you’ve made your complaint
1. We will acknowledge your complaint within five working days.
2. We will send you a response within 10 working days of acknowledging your complaint (stage 1). Sometimes it can take longer to resolve issues. If that happens, we’ll explain why and how long it is likely to take to complete our investigation.
3. If you’re not happy with our initial investigation, you can reply and let us know which issues have not been addressed in the response. We will acknowledge this within five working days.
4. A different complaint handler will review the response and look into the points you tell us have not been addressed. We will send you a response within 20 working days of acknowledging your complaint (stage 2). Sometimes it can take longer to resolve issues. If that happens, we’ll explain why and how long it is likely to take to complete our investigation.
Find out more about how to make a complaint, or read more about the process in our Complaint Handling Policy. Please also see our Easy Read version of the Complaint Handling Policy [2.0 MB] [pdf].
If you remain unhappy following the outcome of your complaint you can contact the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman and ask them to investigate our response.
If your complaint is about an apprenticeship programme that is being delivered directly by ESCC via the in-house Apprenticeship and Qualifications Team (AQT), please read the ESCC AQT complaints policy procedure and practice.
Impartial help with making complaints
Citizens Advice offers an impartial service and can advise you if you need any help with making a complaint against us. To find out more, please contact your local Citizens Advice.
Submit a corporate complaint or compliment
Your views are important to us and we want to hear what you think about the services we deliver. Your feedback helps us to give you the best possible service.
Make a complaint
You can submit your complaint using one of the methods below. We will acknowledge we have received your complaint within five working days.
Email: Corporate complaints
Phone: 01273 482 913. Lines are open Monday to Thursday, 8.30am to 5pm, and Friday 8.30am to 4.30pm
In writing:
Customer Services Team
East Sussex County Council
West D
County Hall
St Anne’s Crescent
Lewes
East Sussex
BN7 1UE
In person:
You can visit us at County Hall if you make an appointment.
Give a compliment
Please let our services know if they have done something well. This helps us to know when we're doing something right.
Unreasonable customer behaviour
On occasion, some people’s behaviour towards our staff can get out of hand and has an impact on their well-being and on our work.
The aim of our policy on unreasonable customer behaviour is to set out to staff and customers how we will handle the rare situations when customers behave unreasonably in their contacts with us. An easy read version [22.4 MB] [pdf] of this policy is also available.
Please also see the County Council's policy about how we use social media. This details how we expect customers to communicate with us reasonably and respectfully when using social media
Our corporate statement on unacceptable behaviour towards staff
Our staff deliver essential services every day, whether that is working with adults, carers, families, maintaining roads or providing customer support. Unfortunately, they often face unacceptable behaviour. As a council, we are committed to protecting staff from this. This includes any physical or verbal aggression, harassment or threatening, abusive, violent, or discriminatory behaviour they experience at work.
Our corporate statement on unacceptable behaviour has been developed with staff and residents to create a safer and more respectful workplace for all the services we deliver across East Sussex.
Our corporate statement on unacceptable behaviour towards staff
The welfare, safety and dignity of people who live and work in East Sussex is our priority. We all deserve to be treated with respect, regardless of our background or identity.
We are committed to protecting our staff from behaviour that is physically or verbally aggressive, threatening, abusive, violent, or discriminatory.
As part of this commitment we will:
- offer effective support to our staff and people using our services
- listen and be considerate, in order to respond in a fair way
- report incidents appropriately, act on, and learn from them together
Our clear message to staff and residents is that we will take action against unacceptable behaviour.
How to contact us
If you want to speak to someone about a service you are receiving, please use this link to contact us online, by phone or to visit the council.
Accessibility
Please let us know if there are any adjustments we can make for you in order to receive information from us or enable you to contact us.
If you need a copy of any of the information above in a different format such as large print, coloured background, Braille or in a different language then please contact us and we will be happy to help.
- Email: Corporate complaints