Customer Feedback

Your feedback is important to us as it helps 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 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.

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 use these compliments 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 help us review the ways in which we do things. We also take them into consideration when revising any policies or procedures.

Complaints

We care about providing great homes and services to our customers, and we recognise that sometimes things go wrong, or our performance or services will not meet your expectations. We welcome feedback and will take the opportunity to put things right and improve our services.

If you think we have failed to provide a service or that we have provided a poor service, we really need to know so we can take action to put things right. We can often resolve problems straight away, but if we cannot put it right for you quickly, we will address the problem as a formal complaint.

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 the attitudes of our staff or contractors
• disagreement with a decision that we have made, where there is not another procedure (for example, an appeal) to resolve the matter

If you are reporting something for the first time, like a new repair or a problem with a neighbour, we will record this as a service request, rather than a 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.

Complaint Investigation

Your complaint will be formally recorded and the relevant team manager will investigate your case. Within two working days we will send you a letter (or email if you prefer) acknowledging your complaint. We will 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 discuss and understand your complaint. Together you can discuss what can be done to put things right. After they have spoken to you, they will write to you to confirm what has been agreed to resolve the complaint.

Sometimes, a complaint can take longer than 10 days to resolve, for example, if 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.

The lead handler will keep in touch until the agreed actions have been completed. If you think that further actions should be taken, you can discuss this with the lead handler. When all actions are complete, the lead handler will contact you to check this. We will then close the complaint.

Review of your complaint

If you feel that we have not dealt with your complaint in a proper or fair way, you can ask for a review. When making a request for a Panel Review meeting, it is important to tell us what you think has been unfair, and how you would like your complaint to be resolved.

We will always try to work with customers to resolve problems without unnecessary delay and it may be possible to resolve your complaint without the need for a Panel Review meeting. At a Panel Review meeting, an independent panel of board members will 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. The panel will write to tell you their decision within 10 days of the panel meeting.

External review of your complaint

If you are not satisfied with the recommendations made by the panel, you may take your complaint further.
After our complaints procedure, you can refer your complaint to a ‘designated person’.

Who is a designated person?

• any MP
• a Councillor from your Local Authority
• a ‘Designated Tenant Panel’ (a resident group that has applied to the landlord for this status).

They can try to resolve your complaint or refer it to the Housing Ombudsman for you. A designated person does not have powers to make a landlord carry out a particular action or change a previous decision, but we will work together to find an outcome that is fair and agreed by both parties. This is a new arrangement that came into effect in April 2013, introduced by the Localism Act 2011. Please get in touch with us for more information.

You can still refer a complaint to the Housing Ombudsman directly, but only after waiting eight weeks from the closure of your complaint with us. They will only investigate your complaint after it has been through all the stages of our internal complaints procedure.

Housing Ombudsman Service
81 Aldwych
London
WC2B 4HN

Telephone: 0300 111 3000
Email: info@housing-ombudsman.org.uk
Website: Housing Ombudsman Service

The Housing Ombudsman can only hear complaints about housing services. We can provide information about alternative bodies for non-housing complaints, such as the local authority or the Leasehold Valuation Tribunal.

This is a summary of our complaints procedure. We reserve the right to use our discretion in applying the complaints procedure. If you would like further information about our complaints procedure please get in touch with us via the contact details at the top of this page, or alternatively visit our policy page to view our complaints policy.

Last modified 28/03/13