Thank you for your recent FOI / EIR request. Please find attached an acknowledgement for this request.

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Dear Peter Hall

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT 2000 - INFORMATION REQUEST

Thank you for your request for information received 17th February 2022. We
have considered your request and enclose the following information:

Please can you tell me how many formal complaints have been submitted to
the council, about the council and councillors, by members of the public
since the 2017/18 financial year? Please can you break it down by
financial years and also tell me what the top three most complained about
matters were? (E.g. staff, councillors, highways, waste etc)

We confirm that we hold information concerning corporate complaints.
Reports on corporate complaints are considered by the Governance and Audit
Committee (previously known as the Audit Committee) on an Annual basis and
a six monthly basis and are publicly available on our website at -
[1]Browse Meetings, 2022 (caerphilly.gov.uk). The reports contain an
overview of the types of complaints received.

Complaints about Councillors by members of the public are dealt with by
the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales and outcomes of complaints are
included with the Ombudsman’s annual letter which is publicly available on
the Ombudsman’s website at -  [2]www.ombudsman-wales.org

Under Section 21 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, we are not
required to provide information in response to a request if it is already
reasonably accessible.  Therefore in respect of the Freedom of Information
Act, this letter constitutes a formal refusal notice under Section 17.

We supply this information based on your original request. If this is not
what you wanted or if you feel we have not fully understood your request,
please do not hesitate to contact me to clarify your exact requirements.

If you have any queries or concerns or are in any way dissatisfied with
the handling of your request please contact [3][Caerphilly County Borough Council request email].

Yours sincerely

CORPORATE INFORMATION GOVERNANCE UNIT

Freedom of Information Act 2000 / Environmental Information Regulations
2004

You have the right to appeal against our decision.
If you wish to appeal, please set If you are unhappy with that decision
out in writing your grounds of you have the right to appeal to:
appeal and send to:
 
 
Information Commissioner’s Office –
Corporate Information Governance Wales
Unit 2nd Floor
Caerphilly county borough council, Churchill House
Penallta House Churchill Way
Tredomen Park Cardiff
Hengoed. CF82 7PG CF10 2HH

Appeals will be determined by an Telephone: 0330 414 6421
appropriate senior officer.
 

Website: [4]www.ico.org.uk

Email: [5][email address]

Re-use of information without permission may infringe the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988. Re-use can include, but is not limited to,
making multiple copies, publishing and issuing copies of the information
to a wider audience. If you would like to re-use copyright material owned
by Caerphilly County Borough Council, please contact us. Authorisation to
re-use copyright material not owned by this Authority should be sought
directly from the copyright owner.

How we will use your information

Caerphilly County Borough Council will process your request, the
information relevant to your request, your identity and contact details
for the purposes of providing you with a response.  A copy of your request
and your response will be kept for 3 years.  Some requests and responses
may be kept longer but this will be in an anonymised form.  

Your request including your identity and contact details will be
distributed to relevant service areas and elected members who may either
hold the information you have requested or are involved in the processing
of requests.  Other organisations and individuals who may be affected by
the disclosure of the information you have requested may be consulted
prior to a decision being made on the disclosure.

If you have made a complaint to the Information Commissioners Office (ICO)
or others in relation to the processing of your request, copies of your
request, response and any additional correspondence between you and
Caerphilly County Borough Council in relevant to your request may be
shared with them.

You have a number of rights in relation to your information including the
right of access to information we hold about you and the right of
complaint if you are unhappy with the way that we have handled your
request or your information.

For further information on how we process your information and your rights
please click the following link:

[6]https://www.caerphilly.gov.uk/Caerphilly...

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