Compliments, complaints and comments

Your feedback is important to us as it help us to identify areas where our service delivery is meeting, or not meeting, the expectations of our customers. We use complaints, comments and compliments to help ensure we put things right and prevent service failures from happening again and so we can replicate things that we do well in other areas of our service.

All feedback from our customers, whether it is a complaint, comment or compliment, is used to help us continuously improve our services.

If you would like to make a complaint, comment or compliment please contact us:

using our online form
in person in the office or when our officers are out visiting you in your home
by phone
by e-mail
by writing to us
by fax
using Circle Digital

Visit our Contact Us page for our contact details.

Complaints

You may want to make a complaint if you feel that we have failed to deliver a service, or that we have provided a poor service. If this happens, we have a simple three-stage procedure to deal with your complaint and put things right. You can get a copy of our complaints information sheet when you visit our offices or click on the link below to download it.
Complaints Key Information Sheet (1.4 MB)

The following are examples of issues we would treat as a complaint:

failure to achieve our Service Standards
failure to meet legal or contractual obligations
dissatisfaction with a decision or action (if this falls outside our agreed policy to provide a service)
dissatisfaction with the attitudes of our staff or contractors

If you are reporting something for the first time, like a new repair, or you have a problem with a neighbour, this will not be treated as a complaint but as a request for service. However, if you contact us with a complaint, such as the examples above, we will try and fix it straight away. If we cannot fix it immediately and you remain dissatisfied we will ask you if you wish us to log the matter as a formal complaint.

If you wish for us to log it as a formal complaint we will ask you for detailed information about what has happened and why you are dissatisfied, and what you would like us to do to put things right, as this will help us to investigate and resolve the complaint.

Stage 1

At this stage your complaint will be formally recorded and the relevant team manager will investigate your case. Within three working days we will send you a letter acknowledging your complaint and include an information sheet explaining the procedure as well as the details of the manager who will be responsible for dealing with your complaint – the ‘Lead Handler’.

The Lead Handler will speak to you to try and reach agreement with you about an appropriate solution. After they have spoken to you they will write to you within 10 working days to confirm what has been agreed to resolve the complaint.

Sometimes, a complaint can take longer than 10 days to resolve, for example, if minor repair works are necessary. In these instances, we will write to you to confirm what actions we will take to resolve the complaint, and will then write again once these have been completed to confirm this.

Stage 2

If you are not satisfied with our response at stage 1, please contact us within 28 days of receiving the letter, explaining the reasons. We will confirm that your complaint has been escalated to Stage 2, writing to you within 3 working days, advising you of this and who will be Lead Handling the complaint at Stage 2.

At Stage 2, either the relevant Senior Manager or the Head of the Department that the complaint relates to will review your complaint and the previous investigation. They will speak to you to try and come up with the right solutions and ensure that any problems are fixed. After they have spoken to you, they will write to you within 10 working days to confirm what you have agreed.

Stage 3

In the unlikely event of you still not being satisfied, please contact us within 28 days of receiving the Stage 2 letter and explain why. We will arrange for an independent panel of board members to hear your complaint. We will invite you to come to the meeting to present your complaint in person.

The panel’s role is to decide whether the complaint has been handled correctly and decide what further action is needed to resolve the complaint. We will write to tell you their decision within 10 days of the panel hearing.

Independent services

If you are not satisfied with the decision of the panel, you may refer your case to another organisation. This is a free service.

If you are a tenant, leaseholder or someone applying for housing you should contact the Housing Ombudsman Service. The Ombudsman will only investigate your complaint after it has been through all the stages of our complaints procedure.

You can get information and forms from customer services or you may contact the Ombudsman at:

The Independent Housing Ombudsman Service
81 Aldwych
London
WC2B 4HN.

Phone: 020 7421 3800
www.ihos.org.uk

If your complaint is about a support service, you should contact the relevant local authority Supporting People team. We can tell you who this is. If your complaint is about a registered care service provided by Circle Support, you can contact:

Commission for Care Inspection
33 Greycoat Street
London
SW1P 2QF

Phone: 0207 972 000

Compliments

When you send us a compliment, we forward it on to the team or member of staff that has been complimented and also their managers, including the Managing Director of South Anglia Housing. We also display these compliments within our offices to identify good practices and encourage our staff to continue to improve in all areas.

Comments

We are very grateful for any comments received and use them to review the ways in which we do things. We also take them into consideration when revising any policies or procedures.

Last modified 06/12/11