Vexatious, persistent and abusive behaviour policy

Welwyn Hatfield Borough Council (‘the council’) is committed to investigating and responding to all complaints fairly, comprehensively, and in a timely manner. However, there are a minority of cases where a person contacts us in a way that prevents staff from investigating the complaint; takes up a disproportionate level of resources; or is considered to be unacceptable.

We do not believe that raising legitimate queries or criticisms of our services or officers should in itself lead to contact being regarded as vexatious or a complainant as unreasonably persistent. We accept that if a customer is unhappy with the outcome of a complaint and seeks to challenge it, this should also not cause us to label the complaint as vexatious.

However, if a customer behaves in a way that is unreasonably persistent or abusive we will follow this policy. We do not expect our staff to tolerate unacceptable behaviour from customers and will take firm action to protect them from this.