Surrey Welfare Rights Unit

Tell us if we’ve let you down.

We want everyone who uses Citizens Advice’s services to be happy . If you’re not, we want to know why. We’ll always try to put things right, but if we can’t, knowing where we’ve gone wrong will help us to do better in the future.

If you make a complaint, we’ll still try to advise you. However, if we can’t, we’ll try to find another adviser or organisation to help you.

Ask us to informally resolve the problem

If you’re unhappy with the service you’ve received from us or the way we’ve treated you, ask to speak to a manager. It’s important that we know what we’ve done wrong as soon as it’s happened so that we can try to put it right. If the manager can’t put it right or you’re still unhappy, you can make a formal complaint about us.

However, you don’t have to talk to us first to make a formal complaint.

Making a formal complaint about us

There are several ways you can make a formal complaint. You can write a letter explaining what happened and send it to the Chief Officer or the Chair of the Trustees at:

Surrey Welfare Rights Unit
Unit 14a, Monument Way Depot
Monument Way East
Woking
Surrey GU21 5LY

or send an email to:

bureau@swru.org

Alternatively, you can call (03000 231 900) or email (feedback@citizensadvice.org.uk) the Citizens Advice Client Services team and give details of your complaint to them. When they receive your complaint, they’ll send it to us to investigate.

Once, we’ve got your complaint, we might talk to you informally about it instead of starting the formal complaints process. This may be quicker and less stressful.

However, we may decide to formally investigate your complaint without speaking to you.

Your complaint will be investigated by someone who isn’t directly involved with it, usually a manager or our Chief Officer. The Chair of the Trustees will send you a formal response once it’s been investigated, usually within eight weeks of us receiving your complaint. If it’s going to take longer, we’ll let you know why.

If we uphold your complaint, we’ll say sorry for what we’ve done wrong and will let you know what we’ll do to put things right.

Review by national Citizens Advice

If you’re unhappy with our response or the outcome to your complaint, you can ask for our decision to be reviewed. To do so, you must contact Citizens Advice’s Client Services team within 4 weeks of receiving our formal response. You need to explain to the Client Services team why you’re unhappy with our formal response.

The Client Services team will review the complaint on behalf of national Citizens Advice’s Chief Executive. The review checks that we properly investigated your complaint, we responded to all of your issues and our reply was fair and reasonable. Their review is not a re-investigation of your complaint.

Review by an independent adjudicator

If you’re unhappy with national Citizens Advice’s review, you can ask for your complaint to be reviewed by an independent adjudicator. This is someone from outside Citizens Advice who will decide whether your complaint was dealt with fairly.

If you want an independent adjudicator review, you must contact the Client Services team within four weeks of receiving your review decision and explain to them the reasons why you’re unhappy with the review.

The independent adjudicator’s decision is final and is the last stage of the complaints process.

A copy of this information as a leaflet is available for download here