How we handle unacceptable behaviour

We understand your situation could be stressful and you might be frustrated – but our staff have the right to do their jobs without being treated badly.

Check what behaviour is unacceptable

We won’t accept aggressive behaviour while helping you, for example:

  • swearing
  • abusive language
  • discrimination like racism, sexism or homophobia
  • being violent or threatening violence

We’ll also tell you if you’re taking up an unfair amount of time as this could stop us helping other people. For example, if you:

  • keep demanding things in a short amount of time
  • ask to speak to a specific member of staff when it’s not possible, or contact lots of staff to try and get a different outcome
  • keep changing issues or raising unrelated ones
  • demand help for something outside our advice areas
  • keep raising the same issue when we’ve already helped you or we can’t help more
  • ask for sensitive or confidential information we aren’t allowed to share
  • make lots of complaints without giving us the chance to resolve them, or make an unreasonable number of data protection rights requests

What we’ll do if your behaviour is unacceptable

We’ll give you a chance to change your behaviour, but if you continue we might:

  • end the conversation
  • limit how much time we spend on the phone with you
  • stop helping you face to face and only help you by phone and email
  • not reply to all your communications
  • send letters and documents back to you
  • only help you with certain issues

In very serious situations we might:

  • stop helping you completely
  • call the police

If we decide to stop helping you

If we decide to stop helping you it means you can’t access Citizens Advice services – so we might not respond to any contact from you.

We’ll give you a chance to change your behaviour before we stop helping you – unless your behaviour threatens the safety of our staff or other people.

We’ll always try to tell you why we’ve stopped helping you.

If you think our decision is unfair

If your local Citizens Advice decides to stop helping you, you can appeal to the chair of your local Citizens Advice. Find the contact details for your local Citizens Advice.

If the national organisation decides to stop helping you, you can appeal to the Citizens Advice Client Services team.