Complaint on the activities of a municipality or wellbeing services county
You can submit a complaint to the Finnish Supervisory Agency concerning the activities of a municipality or a wellbeing services county. A complaint is a notification of a suspicion that a municipality or wellbeing services county has acted unlawfully or failed to fulfil its statutory obligations.
If you are dissatisfied with the activities of a municipality or wellbeing services county, you can file a complaint with the Finnish Supervisory Agency. Please see our general complaints page for more detailed information about submitting a complaint, the progress of the complaint process and the potential outcome of a complaint.
Most of the activities of municipalities and wellbeing services counties are within the scope of special legislation. These complaints are not processed as complaints on municipalities or wellbeing services counties, but as complaints concerning the service or activity area in question. These include:
- education services
- early childhood education and care
- social welfare and healthcare services
- library, sports and exercise, and youth services
- health protection
- public employment services
- rescue services
- occupational safety and health.
Read more on each area’s own web page. Please also note that different regulations apply to different areas.
Instead, the activities of a municipality or wellbeing services county that fall outside the aforementioned sectors are treated as a complaint against a municipality or wellbeing services county. If you suspect that the activities are incorrect or illegal, but you are not sure whether the activities fall within the scope of special legislation or other activities of a municipality or wellbeing services county, you can still submit a complaint to the Finnish Supervisory Agency. We will determine what kind of complaint it will be processed as.
As part of the complaint procedure, the Finnish Supervisory Agency can give administrative guidance to a municipality or wellbeing services county. We cannot order them to act in a certain way, e.g. we cannot require that they pay damages or include certain content in a decision they make.
Publicity of complaints against municipalities or wellbeing services counties
As a rule, a complaint on the activities of a municipality or wellbeing services county are public as are complaint documents and the decision concerning the complaint. Complaint documents may be confidential if they contain confidential information, such as health information. In general, the documents contained in a complaint concerning a municipality or wellbeing services county are not completely confidential. Instead, it is more common that an individual piece of information or attachment related to a complaint must be kept secret.
An effort will be made to process complaints concerning the activities of a municipality or wellbeing services county within approximately one year.
Anyone can submit a complaint even someone who the matter does not apply to. You can submit a complaint alone or together with others.
As a rule, the complaint procedure does not allow for the Finnish Supervisory Agency to examine the legality of a decision made by an office holder or body of a municipality or wellbeing services county. The decision can be appealed in accordance with the instructions for appeal attached to the decision.
We cannot process a case as a complaint against a municipality if the matter applies to the following
- Kela, the police, parishes or guardians
- statutory cooperation between municipalities
- activities of companies or corporations.
However, the activities of the last two parties may in some cases be investigated under special legislation as a sector-specific complaint. Read more above on this page.
We do not grant or impose compensation.
Contact information
Customer service of the Finnish Supervisory Agency
Ask our customer service by using service form
By e-mail: [email protected]
By calling: +358 295 256 910 (Monday–Friday 9:00–15:00)