Complaints procedure

The Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) aims to provide a high quality and efficient service to the public in the UK and abroad. Give us your feedback about the standard of service you have received, so we can improve.

Consular services: feedback, compliments and complaints

We welcome all feedback about our consular services, whether you receive them in the UK or from one of our embassies, high commissions or consulates abroad. Tell us when we get things wrong and when we get things right, so that we can assess and improve our services.

If you want to make a complaint about a consular service you have received, we want to help you resolve it as quickly as possible.

If you would like to compliment us on our services, or if you have other comments about our services, we want to hear from you too.

Visas and passports

We cannot respond to any queries or complaints about UK visas or British passports. Contact UK Visas and Immigration if your complaint is about UK visas or contact HM Passport Office if your complaint is about British passports.

Making a complaint about a consular service

If you would like to send any feedback on Consular services including our Travel Advice and response to COVID-19 please use this contact form.

If you are complaining on behalf of someone else, we must have written, signed consent from that person allowing us to share their personal information with you before we can reply.

There are 2 stages to our complaints procedure:

Stage 1: make your complaint

Send details of your complaint to our feedback contact form. We will record and examine your complaint, and use the information you provide to help make sure that we offer the best possible help and support to our customers. The FCDO or the relevant embassy, high commission or consulate will reply to you.

We aim to provide a full reply within 20 working days. If we cannot give you a full reply within this time, we will tell you when we expect to do so.

You can also write to us:

Consular Feedback Team
Consular Directorate
Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
King Charles Street
London
SW1A 2AH

You can telephone us on 020 7008 5000, but we may ask you to confirm your complaint in writing to us, if possible. We can only reply to complaints by either email or letter.

Stage 2: escalate your complaint

If you are not happy with our initial response, you can escalate your complaint to the Director of Consular Services. The Director will see all complaints and will ask a member of staff, who is not directly connected to your case or complaint, to carry out an investigation.

Compensation

We review any potential compensation payments on a case by case basis during the complaints process. Payments are normally limited to actual costs incurred directly as a result of errors on our part. On rare occasions consolatory payments may be made where our actions are shown to have caused significant distress.

Next steps

If you are not satisfied with the response from the Director, then you can write directly to your Member of Parliament (MP), asking them to raise your complaint with the Parliamentary and Health Services Ombudsman.

Complimenting a consular service

Your positive feedback helps us to ensure that we are able provide the best possible, most consistent and appropriate consular service to all our customers.

If you have received a consular service that was helpful, supportive or professional from one of our consulates overseas or from the consular office in London, please tell us using our feedback contact form.

Our feedback programme and research

We work with partner research agencies to collect feedback about our services. If you have been a consular customer and have sought consular assistance overseas and have provided your contact details as part of that service, you may be approached by us to ask you to take part in our feedback programme. We may do this via a number of channels; over the phone, via SMS text, email or face to face.

Find out more about contributing to our feedback programme in the consular research privacy notice.

General policy or departmental complaints

If you have a general complaint about our practices or policy, which is not related to consular services, or reporting fraud or corrupt practices, you can:

When we receive your complaint, we will review it and aim respond to you within 20 working days.

The Parliamentary and Health Services Ombudsman

The Ombudsman normally only considers cases that have previously followed our process and relate to ‘maladministration’ (a service failure including poor administration or applying the rules incorrectly). The Ombudsman will normally only accept complaints referred to them by an MP. Find out more on the Parliamentary and Health Services Ombudsman’s website.

The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman
Millbank Tower
Millbank
London
SW1P 4QP

Complaints helpline: 0345 015 4033

You can write to your MP at:

House of Commons
Westminster
London
SW1A 0A

Find your local MP

Reporting fraud or corrupt practices

Our Internal Audit Directorate’s fraud and safeguarding investigation team is the central point for raising concerns, suspicions and/or allegations of fraud, sexual exploitation and abuse or other corrupt practices. This includes both internal and external cases where FCDO funds, assets or interests (including FCDO’s reputation) are involved, as well as any breach of the Civil Service Code.

The fraud and safeguarding investigation team has a dedicated secure email address for raising all concerns: [email protected]

Alternatively, you can report any concerns by:

  • calling the confidential hotline on +44 (0)1355 843747

  • writing to the Director of Internal Audit and Investigations, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, King Charles Street, Whitehall, London, SW1A 2AH, UK

Your information will be treated in confidence. You do not have to provide personal details, but this information will help us take forward your concerns. If you ask us not to disclose your identity, we will not do so without your consent, unless required by law.

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