Purpose
This policy is not intended to prevent customers from raising legitimate and important concerns, enquiries or requests or from pursuing them. We recognise that customers can act out of character at times of anxiety or distress and reasonable allowances are made for this. However, there are some individuals who act in ways that are unreasonable or unreasonably persistent or vexatious.
Hartlepool Borough Council has a duty to ensure that it provides value for money services for all of our residents and local communities. An unreasonable or unreasonably persistent customer or one that is acting in a vexatious manner can take up a disproportionate amount of time and can hinder the other work of our staff. The Council must therefore ensure that it uses its resources wisely and limits the amount of time spent on queries that it considers unreasonable or unreasonably persistent or vexatious.
We are committed to promoting equality of opportunity and diversity and to challenging discrimination. Those who work for the Council also have a right to undertake their work free from all types of discrimination, abuse and harassment. We have a duty to protect the safety and welfare of our staff and therefore will not tolerate what we consider to be unacceptable behaviour by unreasonable or unreasonably persistent or vexatious customers. Unacceptable behaviour includes behaviour which is abusive, offensive or threatening and may include:
- Using abusive or foul language on the telephone;
- Using abusive or foul language face to face;
- Sending multiple emails about the same issue whilst the issue is being investigated or after the matter has been dealt with, and;
- Leaving multiple voicemails or making multiple calls about the same issue whilst the issue is being investigated or after the matter has been dealt with.
Where a customer’s behaviour is so extreme that it threatens the personal safety and wellbeing of our staff, or employees working on the Council’s behalf, the Council will consider other options as set out in our Employee Safety and Wellbeing Policy. This may include reporting the matter to the police or taking legal action. In such cases, the Council may not give the customer prior warning of that action.
This policy is not restricted to complaints. It covers the full range of customer contact including customer requests for information and FOI requests.
In summary, the purpose of this policy is to:
- Define what we mean by unreasonable customer behaviour.
- Provide examples of what we consider to be unreasonable customer behaviour.
- Define what we mean by vexatious requests.
- Provide examples of what we consider to be vexatious requests.
- Explain the process we will follow when dealing with unreasonable customer behaviour and vexatious requests so that everyone knows what they can expect.