Making a complaint

Council recognises that from time to time, service delivery does not meet our required standards.

Council welcomes complaints as well as compliments and will endeavour to use them as a tool to monitor and respond to customer expectations, and to improve services to ratepayers and residents. 

In accordance with Council's Complaints Policy(PDF, 221KB), we aim to resolve complaints within 30 calendar days. Where the investigation will exceed 30 calendar days, we will contact you to discuss the need for additional time to complete the investigation.

Complaints must be in writing and can be submitted via Council's Online Form or PDF Form(PDF, 60KB).

Complaints may be submitted:

• In hard copy, via any of Council’s Customer Service Centres
• Online, via webform or editable PDF(PDF, 60KB)
• Via email, to shire@hepburn.vic.gov.au
• Via post, to Hepburn Shire Council, PO Box 21, Daylesford VIC 3460.

Definition of a Complaint

Council defines a complaint as:

“An implied or express statement of dissatisfaction where a response is sought, reasonable to expect or legally required.”

Generally, initial requests for service, action or information are not complaints, although they do prompt action. Subsequent requests will be assessed as an implicit complaint about service, inaction or delay where our customer service standards have not been met.

A complaint includes a communication (verbal or written) to the Council which expresses dissatisfaction, and requires a response about:

• the quality of an action, decision or service provided by Council staff or a Council contractor
• a delay by Council staff or a Council contractor in taking an action, making a decision or delivering a service
• a policy or decision made by the Council, Council staff or a Council contractor.

Not a complaint?

I want to lodge a service request.

A complaint is not:

1. An initial submission of feedback. We define feedback as: “A compliment, criticism, comment or suggestion where a response is not sought, or not reasonable to expect.”
2. An Insurance claim.
3. A Public Interest Disclosure (i.e. complaints about fraud and corrupt conduct. Such complaints are managed by the Public Interest Disclosure process, see Council’s Public Interest Disclosure Policy(PDF, 479KB) for more details).
4. A Planning objection (planning objections have an existing process for review and appeal, details are available on Council’s website).
5. A Local-laws dispute.
6. Disputes about decisions to impose special rates or charges or the validity of an election.
7. Feedback related to proposals for public comment (e.g. proposals for comment made under section 223 of the Victorian Local Government Act 1989).
8. Matters over which Council has no jurisdiction or is not empowered to resolve.
9. Matters that are being processed in accordance with their statutory timeframes, i.e. planning applications, road management obligations and Freedom of Information requests. If you have a complaint regarding the application decision within Council, there is external agencies to assist with this review.

The review process

If you are dissatisfied with our decision or how we responded to your complaint, you can request an internal review.

The internal review will be conducted by a senior Council Officer who has not had any prior involvement with your complaint. We will inform you of the outcome of the internal review and explain our reasons within 30 calendar days.

There are also external bodies that can deal with different types of complaints about Council. You can request an external review from the following organisations: