Agenda item

This report provides an outline of the complaints management in Housing Services.

Colette Prior (Head of Complaints and Disputes Resolution) provided an outline of the complaints management in Housing Service, including issues and complaint escalation, regulatory scrutiny and findings, initiation of change and service redesign, the Housing Hub, the Complaints & Disputes Resolution Team, organisation chart, complaints’ performance and process, and next steps. Members noted that H&F Policy stated that a response would be made to a Stage 1 complaint within 15 working days, which would be reduced to 10 days if the complaint fell under the Housing Ombudsman’s jurisdiction.

Councillor Adronie Alford said she was delighted to see this programme, however, there were still a lot of complaints that went wrong.  She was concerned when the complaints mistakes could be stopped from happening. In response, Richard Shwe (Director of Housing) remarked that complaints were always there.  He highlighted that the Housing Ombudsman had been referring other local authorities and his teams to exchange views with each other on issues of common concerns. A dedicated Complaints and Disputes Resolution Team had been set up to handle all housing-related complaints and deliver one-stop services through the Housing Hub. All these helped to show that H&F was making improvements in complaints and disputes resolution.

Councillor Alford said she wanted to see that the officers in the dedicated team had learnt to address and resolve the complaints straight away as long-term cases never seemed to get results.  Jon Pickstone (Strategic Director for the Economy) acknowledged that there had been backlog of repairs in H&F but that the number of outstanding repairs cases, including aged cases, had been substantially reduced in recent months.  The Housing team was working systematically to ensure the repairs were done more punctually and to a higher quality with improved customer care. Couple with the reduction in age profile of outstanding repairs, this should result in fewer complaints being made. The more focused approach to complaint-handling was improving the quality and timeliness of response once a complaint had been made.

Councillor Paul Alexander appreciated that the Housing team was making positive result. He sought further elaboration about enhancing communication among residents, upgrading record keeping and collaborating by regular in-service audits under the Resident-Centric Approach.

Colette Prior noted that sometimes, residents in Housing Ombudsman cases were not updated regularly.  As there were occasions where the repairs target might not line up with the Housing Ombudsman complaint-handling code, the officer would monitor the situation after giving out the timely response until there was a result.  At the point of closing the complaints, the residents would be asked how and how often they wanted to be updated. Richard Shwe supplemented that under the Resident-Centric Approach, officers would understand the needs of residents and offer alternative options for things that could not be changed.  H&F had also implemented Tenant Satisfaction Measures under the Social Housing (Regulation) Act 2023. The repairs undertaken last month had achieved a satisfaction score of 78% reflecting residents were happy with the repairs service quality.

Councillor Asif Siddique appreciated the establishment of the one-stop Housing Hub.  It was also excellent for the Team to achieve a 0% overdue in late September down from 67% in mid-June.

Noting that a feedback loop would continue to operate to communicate Ombudsman findings to relevant teams to foster continuous service improvement, the Chair asked how closely the repairs team and disputes team could work and loop feedback to each other. John Hayden (Assistant Director of Repairs) said his team and the dispute team worked hand in hand. He then explained how the two teams worked through the Stage 1 and Stage 2 process and briefed members on the plan and what to expect in the new year. Richard Shwe highlighted the benefits of co-location with the right trade people in expediting the repairs cases and the resident-centric approach focusing on their needs in delivering quality services.

RESOLVED

That the Committee noted and commented on the report.