One of our key ambitions is to deliver an excellent and reliable resident experience, and our priority is to put things right for you when they go wrong. Problems can often be resolved quickly without the need for a formal complaint just by talking with us. We ask that you always give us the opportunity to resolve your issue before raising a complaint, as this is often the easiest and quickest way to achieve a positive outcome for both of us.
We actively encourage your feedback on our services, both good and bad, so we can use it to make improvements. However, we recognise that we need to be better at dealing with your complaints, and have been working hard to improve this.
One of the key aspects to this will be training for our staff, and this will be commencing later this month following the rollout of our new Complaints policy, updated webpages and IT system all having been launched since Christmas.
Although our Complaints policy had been reviewed within the last 12 months, it has been redrafted with the Lewisham Homes’ Resident Scrutiny Committee to ensure it provides you with everything you want to know when you need to complain to us and remains fully compliant with the Housing Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code. The main changes to the updated policy are:
- We have listed all the different ways a complaint can be made, so you know how to contact us without needing to rely on online access only.
- We have added in more detail about what happens at the different stages of the complaints process so you know what to expect and when you should hear from us.
- We have added a section on confidentiality to reassure you that your data is safe, and it will always be anonymised when reported.
Our Resident Scrutiny Committee agreed that a factsheet on complaints would also be helpful, and have worked with us to draft this, together with the updated content. Our thanks go out to all the members who have worked so hard on this vital project and for the impact they have made.
But we’re not taking it easy and there’s still plenty to do so that we start to reduce the number of complaints we receive about the same issues. Next, we will be focusing on understanding what factors are causing the complaints we receive, and how we can use what you’re telling us to improve our services, which should lead to a reduction in complaints about the same thing.
Watch out for further updates on our work around complaints in your newsletter and on our website.
