Agenda item

Objective: To provide an overview of housing related complaints and compliments, identifying key areas of dissatisfaction and areas for learning and service improvement.

The Director of Governance, Housing and Communities addressed the committee and highlighted the following:

-       The report includes the annual figures for complaints and compliments for the whole of the financial year, and a more detailed report on quarter 4.

-       Since the report was written the Complaints Policy has been reviewed by the Housing Ombudsman and only seven minor changes were recommended. The Ombudsman has confirmed that they are happy with the way the council are handling complaints and are comfortable that it is compliant with the Complaints Handling Code.

-       There was a period of time due to resourcing issues that complaints were being handled centrally, but it is now intended that this will be transferred back to service areas from 1 September. This puts responsibility back onto service areas and will ensure that they are learning from their own complaints.

-       On the CBC website details of the learning from the year have been published. There is also detail in the annual report of what is currently being worked on, and key themes that have emerged from complaints. These have included:

o   Issues with callbacks, so an additional member of staff has been brought in to support the kitchen programme.

o   Meetings have also been held with contractors to address issues around communication and ensure they are aware of the council’s expectations.

o   Issues were identified with follow-up works and tenants not being aware of what was happening with their repairs. So, processes have been put in place to ensure that these updates are being provided.

-       The page addressing compliments for the work teams have been doing was highlighted.

-       Working on collecting a complainant profile so a deep dive on complaints can be carried out. A meeting has been scheduled to review whether any particular group is being represented disproportionately within the complaints process. This will also include data around property type, as well as personal details including age range and disability status amongst others.

The committee’s discussion raised the following points:

-       Profiling information could be very helpful as it may identify gaps in knowledge for certain groups.

-       The Tenant Representative noted that he had been shown the information available on the QL system for repairs he had himself reported to see how they are managed and had been impressed by the breadth of information available. He thanked John Clements and Aston Stevens for meeting with him to review this. He highlighted that the level of information provided by in-house teams is often missing from repairs carried out by contractors, leaving colleagues unable to communicate effectively with tenants about their repairs. It was suggested that as contracts are renegotiated requirements are included to ensure the flow of more detailed information to the council.

-       Officers noted that the team are dealing with thousands and thousands of jobs each year and work with a large number of contractors. They highlighted that the TSMs are now showing a positive change in direction and an increase in both satisfaction and performance times since 2023. They agreed that communication remains an issue so even where processes are in place and a contractor has been advised to do something, it is important that the tenant is kept informed of progress. They highlighted that they will continue to look for ways to improve this service.

-       Particular issues relating to the mechanism for reporting complaints for a block, rather than individual property, was raised. Communication around this was highlighted as a cause of frustration for the Leasehold Representative. The officer explained that if repairs are under £250 then this is included within the annual service charge bill sent to leaseholders for the previous year. These letters do encourage customers to contact the team if they have any queries and in-house work is fully documented with photographs. Following the annual billing this year there were barely any inquiries hopefully showing that the service has improved. For any repairs over £250 a section 20 consultation process will take place. Unfortunately, due to the numbers involved it is not always possible to communicate with all residents in a block, due to the cost implications.

-       Where repairs are escalated to the planned investment team, which often involves working with contractors, work is being undertaken to improve the flow of information and communication. Part of this improvement will involve the extensions of PDAs (personal digital assistants), which allow those attending repairs to update instantly and take photographs, to the planned investment team. As the team have monthly meetings with contractors, they will then be able to upload information directly to QL and ensure everything is clearly recorded. It will also mean items, like referrals from building surveyors, will be included in the workflow.