Annual Report on Internal Complaint Handling 2021

1. Legal framework for the right to complain

Anyone can file a complaint about the way in which an administrative body or an employee has behaved towards them or another person in a particular matter. This is laid down in Article 9 of the General Administrative Law Act (Awb).

Complaints about improper treatment may include:
- improper treatment with regard to manners and decency;
- failure to respond to correspondence (in a timely manner);
- failure to provide requested information;
- failure to fulfill commitments made.

The right to complain does not apply to:
- reports: reports regarding undesirable situations in public spaces (e.g., defective street lighting, loose paving stones, or uncollected garbage);
- objections and appeals: disagreement with (the content of) a decision;
- policy: decisions by the municipal executive or council to perform public tasks in a certain way.

The complaints procedure cannot be used if:
- the complaint has already been dealt with in accordance with the complaints procedure; or
- the complaint relates to an event that took place more than one year ago.

A complaint is submitted to the administrative body against which the complaint is directed. In the first instance, an attempt is made to resolve the complaint through informal channels. Often, a meeting with the complaints coordinator or the employee or manager concerned is sufficient.
Sometimes it is not possible to resolve a complaint through informal channels. In that case, the complaint will be dealt with internally in accordance with the West Maas en Waal municipality's Internal and External Complaints Handling Regulations. The complainant and the person against whom the complaint is directed will be heard by the complaints handler.
Finally, a letter of settlement will be sent.
If desired, a complainant who is not satisfied with the settlement can submit the complaint to the Municipal Ombudsman; this is known as external complaint handling.

2. Complaints

All complaints are treated confidentially. As a result, no names may be mentioned in an annual report, nor may any other information be published that could be traced back to the complainants. However, a brief description of the complaints is provided so that you can get an idea of what the complaints relate to.
In 2020, four complaints were received.

Internal complaint handling

1. The complaint:
   Poor accessibility of municipal employee handling objections to administrative fees.
   Method of resolution:
   Informal complaint handling: Resolved to satisfaction.
2. The complaint:
   Method of communication regarding questions about municipal taxes
   Method of resolution:
   Informal complaint handling: Resolved to satisfaction.
3. The complaint:
   Method of communication regarding the reporting of a dangerous traffic situation.
   Method of resolution:
   Informal complaint handling; Resolved to satisfaction.
4. The complaint:
   Method of communication regarding dog nuisance.
   Method of resolution:
   Informal complaint handling; handled satisfactorily.

External complaint handling

If the person submitting a complaint disagrees with how the complaint has been handled, they have the option of submitting the complaint to an ombudsman. Every municipality is required to establish an ombudsman (Article 9:18 of the General Administrative Law Act and Article 81p of the Municipalities Act). The municipality of West Maas en Waal has a local ombudsman, Ms. M.J. van Dasselaar, and a deputy ombudsman, Ms. S. Stokman-Prins.

Incidentally, complaints must first be dealt with internally before anyone can submit a complaint to the ombudsman. The ombudsman is required to report on his activities for the year 2020. You can read about this in a separate annual report, which is available at the same time.
The internal complaint handling procedures in 2020 did not result in any complaints being submitted to the Municipal Ombudsman.

Complaints received over the past four reporting years: