In December 2020 we published a new customer service strategy to align with our revised strategic objectives. It sets out a detailed action plan based on feedback from residents about how we can build trust with them. The strategy focuses on five key areas identified by residents that reflect what ‘trust’ means to them. The areas are transparency, accessibility, engagement, accountability and consistency.

Complaints

We received 1,051 complaints at stage 1 and 2 which is a slight increase to last year (1,007 complaints in 2019/20). We successfully resolved 76% of these complaints at the first stage of the complaints procedure which is less than what we achieved last year (86%).

If a resident is dissatisfied with the outcome of our complaints process, they can take their complaint to the Housing Ombudsman. This is an independent service that resolves disputes involving the tenants and leaseholders of social landlords.

This year, the Housing Ombudsman received 55 enquiries from our residents, resulting in 24 investigations. From these investigations, they found fault in 10 cases relating to service failures which is a lower form of maladministration (we didn’t receive any maladministration outcomes). This means the evidence demonstrated that we acted in accordance with our obligations and there is no evidence of any significant failing or harm to residents in 57% of cases investigated. On average the Ombudsman finds fault with the landlord in 37% of cases.

* There is a difference between the total received and total resolved due to resolving some complaints that were received in the previous year.

During 2020/21, we responded to 93% of our complaints on time (within 10 working days at stage 1 and within 20 working days at stage 2). It is slightly below our target of 95% but is an improvement on our 2019/20 performance where we responded to 86% of our complaints on time.

We are fully committed to following Housing Ombudsman guidance and their reports on damp, mould and disrepair. We are reviewing our processes to make sure that we are giving the fairest outcome to residents and customers.

We are also implementing several internal campaigns to improve awareness of both complaints and complaint handling. In addition, we have implemented an instant response initiative which will not only lower the volume of complaints, but also help with one of our key aims of building residents’ trust.