Housing complaints performance and service improvement annual report 2023/2024
Section 2 - Housing complaints performance 2023/24
The Regulator of Social Housing (RSH) has introduced a framework of Tenant Satisfaction Measures (TSM) that all social landlords must collect and report on from 2023/24. In relation to complaint handling these include:
- satisfaction with the landlord's approach to complaint handling
- complaints relative to the size of the landlord
- complaints responded to within Complaint Handling Code timescales
Satisfaction with the landlord's approach to complaint handling
This is measured by a perception survey and in 2023/24 the survey was carried out by telephone. Compared to results from 2022/23 satisfaction has increased from 21% to 26% in 2023/24. Although satisfaction has increased, it remains comparatively low when compared to our other TSM scores. Low levels of satisfaction with complaint handling is a trend widely reported across the social housing sector, however our performance indicates that we are not providing a good customer experience.
Complaints relative to the size of the landlord
This TSM aims to provide the Regulator of Social Housing with the number of complaints received per 1000 properties. This alongside data from the other Tenant Satisfaction Measures provides an indication as to how effective a landlord's complaint policy is being implemented. We have exceeded the target of registering 13 complaints per 1000 homes during 2023/24, which evidences a proactive approach to registering complaints.
In total 429 stage 1 complaints were received during 2023/24 and 56 stage 2 complaints.
Complaints responded to within Complaint Handling Code timescale
To ensure compliance with the CHC the council adopted a simplified two-stage process for housing complaints with a target of 10 working days to respond to stage 1 complaints and 20 working days for stage 2 complaints were adopted.
The Housing Ombudsman target of 10 days for responding to stage 1 complaints has proven to be very challenging and only 29% were responded to within timescale during 2023/24. Performance against the Housing Ombudsman target of 20 working days for a stage 2 complaint was better with 71% responded to within timescale.