Request for Service and Complaints
Sometimes tenants contact us to tell us that something has gone wrong and they need us to put it right (for example a missed appointment or returning to do a repair). These are service requests and we will act promptly to deal with them.
Generally the following are not dealt with as complaints:
- An initial or follow up request for service
- An information request
- An insurance claim or a matter which is subject to legal proceedings
A complaint is an expression of dissatisfaction, however made, about the standard of service actions or lack of action by the Council, its own staff, or those acting on its behalf, affecting a resident or group of residents.
Our complaints procedure reflects the Housing Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code. We will acknowledge a complaint when a resident expresses dissatisfaction with the response to their service request. When the action or lack of action has resulted in service failure a complaint arises. This includes:
- Services delivered directly by the Council or its contractor
- The standard or quality of the service
We will act fairly when investigating a complaint. Investigating officers will seek to carefully consider all of the available information, act independently with an open mind and keep the matter confidential.
We will use information from complaints to improve our services and we will consider trends to inform changes which may be required to our systems of work.
We will follow our published procedure to endeavour to resolve a complaint. We recognise that effective complaint handling should be a customer friendly process that enables residents to be heard, listened to and understood. The starting point for this is a mutual understanding of what constitutes a complaint.
A resident does not have to use the word ‘complaint’ for it to be treated as such.We recognise the difference between a service request, survey feedback and a complaint and take appropriate steps to resolve the issue for residents as early as possible. We classify each complaint we receive under one of the two stages of complaint, Stage One and Stage Two.
