When things go wrong
Highlights of the year
Every complaint we receive is a valuable opportunity to put things right and rebuild trust, as well as learn from mistakes and make improvements to the way we deliver services.
In June 2025, the Housing Ombudsman Service closed their investigation after we committed to strengthening complaint handling, improving response times, and embedding learning more effectively across the organisation.
This year we’ve recruited a new Complaints Improvement Manager, and a dedicated complaints team to support us to respond to complaints effectively and make sure that we use the occasions when we get things wrong as chances to learn and improve.
Learnings and improvements made this year
The Complaints Improvement Project introduced a new approach to how we manage, respond to and learn from complaints. This work directly addressed the concerns raised by the Housing Ombudsman.
We established a clearer start to finish complaints process, developed practical guidance for staff, recruited a dedicated complaints team, and implemented a centralised system for recording and managing complaints.
Poor communication is one of the most common themes behind complaints. This is often linked to failures in our service and understandably affects your trust in us. It also contributes to more complaints and complaints moving from from Stage 1 to Stage 2.
We have reflected these issues directly in our improvement programmes. While progress has been made, more work is needed to deliver consistent, resident focused communication across all services.
To help improve communication, we are telephoning residents more to discuss and clarify their complaint, ensuring we have a clear understanding of the issues raised and the resolution they’re seeking. We also updated our complaint response guidance to colleagues, so that it’s clearer for the resident to see the investigation we’ve carried out, the outcome of this and how we are going to put things right where needed.
What we're focussing on in 2026/27
We are working towards a complaints experience that is transparent, empathetic and accessible. This is ongoing work, and several areas remain under development, including:
• Updating our complaints and compensation policies to ensure a consistent tone and that they meet the Housing Ombudsman's expectations.
• Developing key targets and a quality framework that reflect residents’ experiences, not just response times.
• A phased move towards full centralisation of the complaints team, with the aim of completing this by summer 2026.
Stage 1 Complaints per 1000 homes
Last year
Stage 1
This year
Stage 1
Stage 2 Complaints per 1000 homes
Last year
Stage 2
This year
Stage 2
Stage 1 complaints handled on time
Last year
Target 90%
This year
Target this year 90% / Next year 95%
Stage 2 complaints handled on time
Last year
Target 90%
This year
Target this year 90% / Next year 95%
Satisfaction with complaint handling
Satisfaction with landlord's approach to handling complaints