Issue - meetings

To consider the Performance of Housing Complaints for 2024/2025 and provide feedback for consideration by the Cabinet (report of the Director of Communities enclosed).

Consideration was given to the report of the Director of Communities which considered the performance of Housing Complaints for 2024/2025 and sought feedback for the consideration of Cabinet.

The Business Support Manager introduced the report and highlighted the following areas:

• The report provided an update on the annual complaint’s performance and the Council’s performance against the Housing Ombudsman Complaint Handling Code.
• There had been a cultural change in the service with the active promotion of the complaints system to tenants.
• The service had introduced complaint learning forms to be completed for every complaint to determine required improvements to the service.

Members considered the report, and made the following comments:

• Members commented that the use of coulure bar charts made the data confusing to read and difficult to identify.
• Members stated that complaints were a resource dependent area and queried whether officers would meet the deadline for submission to the Housing Ombudsman.
  • The Business Support Manager responded that the Housing Ombudsman had extended their submission deadline from 30^th June to September but subject to Cabinet approval on 10^th June, the deadline would be met.
• Members questioned whether any further analysis to that identified within the report was carried out to determine the cause of complaints.
  • The Business Support Manager commented that an internal complaints working group analysed trends and themes of complaints quarterly and discussed recommendations for service improvements.
  • A data analyst had also recently been recruited to assist with further analysis.
• Members asked whether the complaints ‘not upheld’ had been determined by the Housing Ombudsman.
  • The Business Support Manager explained that these were not Housing Ombudsman complaints. There were three complaint stages: stage one where a Service Manager investigated, stage 2 where the Assistant Director investigated and stage three where the complaint was passed to the Housing Ombudsman, but a complainant did have the ability to pass their complaint to the Housing Ombudsman at any time.
  • There had only been one Housing Ombudsman complaint in the last year.
• Members further queried the meaning of ‘not upheld’ complaints.
  • The Business Support Manager confirmed that these were rejected complaints where the Council had followed their policies and procedures.
  • The Business Support Manager stated that all investigating officers were required to complete a feedback form for every complaint to record learning and improvements to be made to the service.

AGREED:

That the Panel notes the contents of the report which included the annual complaints performance and service improvement report for 2024/2025 (as attached at appendix 1) and the Housing Ombudsman self-assessment 2025 (as attached at appendix 2)