Complaints performance and improvement

The council's governing body, the strategic leadership team has reviewed and discussed the contents of the annual complaints performance and service improvement report 2025 to 2026. These are their comments. 

Ombudsman engagement

During 2025 to 2026 we had a constructive engagement with the Housing Ombudsman Service who had expressed concerns about our complaints handling. Their challenge and scrutiny was welcome, and over the course of our conversations we had the opportunity to demonstrate our plans to improve performance, address systemic issues, and deliver the high-quality service that our tenants and leaseholders expect and deserve. Having closed their investigation in November 2025, noting our self-awareness of our challenges and the actions required to address them, we continue to deliver service improvements and to robustly monitor these at a senior level.

Complaints timeliness

We are pleased to note an improvement in the timeliness of complaints responses over the course of 2025 to 2026, although it is important to acknowledge that we have not yet demonstrated that timeliness is assured and will be achieved month on month. This is a part of our core focus, and we must consistently achieve this in the current year. To support this, we have agreed additional complaints handling resources.

Providing a quality service

Just as important as meeting timescales, is delivering high-quality investigations and appropriate remedies when things go wrong. We have made significant progress here, supported by improved staff training and regular sampling checking of investigations. We have improved our policies and procedures, including introducing a new compensation policy, and we are making sure staff are confident and comfortable using these. We are also driving improvements in those services which are often the cause of complaints, such as repairs.

Accessibility

As a council, we are committed to making sure all our residents can access services equally, irrespective of their individual circumstances. We have worked to better publicise how to make a complaint, both on and offline. We check on individual vulnerabilities during every complaint investigation, and tailor our investigations and remedies accordingly. We are conducting a broader piece of work, to ensure we understand the needs of all our tenants and leaseholders and use this information to tailor all our service delivery, including complaints.

Summary

We are pleased with the progress we have made over the past year but are clear it is not enough. We continue to strive to deliver an excellent complaints service, have plans in place to facilitate this improvement, and the right monitoring, governance and oversight to ensure that we stay on track. We will know we have achieved it not just through our performance, but when our tenants and leaseholders tell us that they are satisfied. This will demonstrate that we listen and act on what they tell us, and that we seize the opportunity that complaints provide us to improve the services we deliver.

The Housing Ombudsman asks us to carry out a yearly self-assessment against the complaints handling code