As a board, it is extremely important for us to receive information about how we are performing and to hear directly from tenants and customers.
Complaints performance has been a key focus area for the Group this year as it continues to deliver on its aim to always provide tenants and customers with the best possible service, whilst recognising that we don’t always get things right. We receive regular reports and hear from tenants through the Tenants Voice – Improving Services group reporting and their scrutiny reviews.
This year, we also established two tenant committees (representing supported living; and general needs, independent living and supported housing, leasehold and shared ownership tenants), with a defined purpose:
- to hear the customer and tenant voice
- to shape, influence and review service delivery and performance based on tenant experiences when compared alongside outcome measures e.g. key performance indicators and tenant satisfaction measures, with a focus on continuous improvement
- to recommend/report to board how the tenants voice can be heard through insight and engagement activity to influence the Strategic Plan
We have reviewed the annual complaints performance report, improvement plan and self-assessment (against the Housing Ombudsman's Complaint Handling Code).
We consider that the number of complaints the Group receives (71.2 at stage 1 per 1,000 homes) to be a significant number, but importantly, we are pleased that tenants have the confidence to report concerns to us and provide an opportunity for us to review and put things right. The transactional survey introduced within the year further demonstrates this with 76.9% of complainants stating that they would feel comfortable making a complaint in the future.
During this year, there has been a lot of activity undertaken to ensure that we continuously improve services to tenants and to hear the voice of customers. This has been fully embedded within the organisation and aligns with the Group’s values. There is a strong culture and awareness amongst both tenants and colleagues around the importance of complaints, accountability, hearing the tenant voice and working together to learn and improve services.
This has been done through:
- ongoing consultation on changes to the Group's Complaints, Feedback and Redress Policy
internal audit (substantial assurance) and tenant scrutiny review of complaints - training delivered to colleagues, tenants and non-executive directors on the Group customer service-style developed with colleagues and tenants (RAMP) - R – Resolve issues, A – Adapt our service, M – Make it easy, P – Proactive communication
- a change in national contractor, with an improvement in repairs service delivery
- ongoing focus on the top priorities for tenants, which includes complaints and communication
- learning from complaints forum developed with managers
- the introduction of Tenant Committees with a focus on learning from complaints
The impact of this has been seen in improved performance on responding to complaints and first point of contact resolution. When reviewing the top reasons for complaints we believe that the actions taken; to implement RAMP training; learning from complaints forums; and the development of the complaint resolution officer role in complaints, have all contributed to the improvement in communication, which is no longer the top reason for complaints. This can be seen in the Tenant Satisfaction Measures results too, where there has been an improvement in the perception measure relating to the Group’s complaints handling. (45.8%)
Our tenants have told us that learning and continuous improvement can also be gained from compliments which is an area that we will be focussing on this year.
Complaints remain a key focus for the board which is monitored through:
- regular reports to the board
- members responsible for complaints (MRC) quarterly meetings with operational colleagues to review service improvement and performance. Neil Townsend and Yasmin Fearon are the MRC and also chair the Tenant Committees
- learning from complaints forum – held with managers responding to complaints, tenants and the Customer Feedback Team
- customer voice activity – Tenants Talk, Customer Promises – monitoring and informing continuous improvement
- Tenant Committees – reviewing performance and learning from complaints.
Progress Housing Group Limited (Parent) Board
May 2025