Complaints Policy

This policy sets out our approach to receiving and handling complaints and ensuring that they are dealt with in a consistent and transparent way. We welcome both positive and negative feedback to help improve our services. We aim to always give excellent customer service but know that we do not always get things right. This policy outlines what you can do to let us know when you think something has gone wrong, and what you can expect from us in response.

Contents:

  1. Definition of a complaint
  2. Accessibility and awareness
  3. Complaint handling personnel
  4. Complaint handling principles
  5. Complaint stages
  6. Putting things right
  7. Continuous learning and improvement
  8. Self-assessment and compliance

Other key information:

1. Definition of a complaint

1.1 Our definition of a complaint

“an expression of dissatisfaction, however made, about the standard of service, actions or lack of action by the organisation, its own staff, or those acting on its behalf, affecting an individual resident or group of residents.”

1.2 Accepting dissatisfaction as a complaint

You do not have to use the term ‘complaint’ to raise a complaint. We will accept any expression of dissatisfaction which meets our complaint definition.

1.3 Third party complaints

Anyone can make a complaint on your behalf. If you wish to complain on behalf of a third party or someone is raising a complaint on your behalf, then we do require written consent to release information surrounding the details of the complaint.

A member of our Customer Experience Team will arrange for written consent to be received before we can formally respond.

Any issues raised without consent will still be investigated in line with this Policy however mhs will only provide a response once consent is received.

In some circumstances it may not be appropriate to accept written consent, for example from a child or from someone with vulnerabilities impairing their judgement. On these occasions we will exercise discretion and may not accept the written consent. On these cases we will only accept a complaint from a confirmed representative such as a Power of Attorney.

1.4 Non-resident complaints

If we receive a complaint from a non-mhs resident, this will be dealt with through this policy. However, non-mhs complainants do not have the right of appeal to the Housing Ombudsman.

This is not applicable with non-mhs residents who are complaining on behalf of an mhs resident.

1.5 Exclusions – what we will not investigate

We will accept a complaint, unless it meets one of the following points:

  • It falls under our definition of a Service Request
  • Complaints about corporate services such as finance, IT and HR, unless it is directly related to the delivery of a service to a tenant
  • It is a claim or legal proceedings have started such as disrepair, personal injury, or insurance claim
  • The issue you are complaining about occurred 12 or more months previous
  • You are complaining on behalf of someone, but we do not have written consent from the person you are complaining on behalf of, to share information with you
  • You have already raised the issue and we are in the process of investigating under this Complaints Policy
  • You have already raised the issue and a decision was provided to you

You will be informed if you raise a complaint, but we deem it to be an exclusion. The Customer Experience Team will contact you back with the following:

  • Offer you an explanation as to why the issues you have raised are part of an exclusion
  • Confirmation that the Customer Experience Team are not dealing with the issues at this current time and will not be investigating under the Complaints Policy
  • Details of the Housing Ombudsman and your right to raise your issues directly with them
  • If it is a service request, then details on how to raise the service requests directly with the service in future
  • If it is a service request, claim or legal proceedings then details of who we have passed your request onto

In addition, the following are also exclusions at stage two of our complaint procedure:

  • You remain dissatisfied but do not provide specific reasons as to why you are unhappy with your stage one response
  • You have not allowed enough time for the outstanding actions to be completed
  • You make a claim for Compensation without detailing how you meet the requirements for compensation. Please see our Compensation Policy for types of compensation we will consider

1.6 Service requests

A service request is a request from a resident to their landlord requiring action to be taken to put something right. Whereas a complaint should be raised when a resident is dissatisfied with their response to the service request.

For example, the following we would consider as service requests and not consider under this Complaints Policy:

1.7 Survey feedback

If you raise that you are dissatisfied during a customer satisfaction survey, you will be directed to raise a complaint yourself. How to complain is detailed in the following section.

2. Accessibility and awareness

2.1 Where to complain

You can raise a complaint using the following methods:

  • Report your complaint through My Account
  • On the mhs website Feedback, compliments and complaints | mhs homes
  • Call us on 01634 565333
  • Email complaints@mhs.org.uk
  • Face to face with any mhs employee
  • Contact your local MP or Councillor
  • Write to: mhs homes, Broadside, Leviathan Way, Chatham Maritime, Chatham, ME4 4LL. For the attention of the Customer Experience Team
  • In person by visiting us at our office
  • On social media

Please note that if you visit us in person, a member of the Customer Contact Team will meet you to obtain the information detailed in section 5.1 of this policy. They will be unable to answer your complaint there and then.

2.2 Reasonable adjustment requests

We are committed to ensuring that no one is at a disadvantage when accessing our services. We will accept reasonable adjustment requests that support you with our complaints process, in line with our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Policy. A few examples could be:

  • Large print letters
  • Verbal communication through phone calls or home visits
  • Translating

Please contact the Customer Experience Team, in the method that suits you best, to discuss what request you would like to be considered.

2.3 Social media

If you raise a complaint on our social media channels, then we will ask you to private message us with the details. This is to ensure we meet our Privacy Notice.

Should you not provide details privately, then it is unlikely we will be able to log your complaint and offer you a full response.

Please see our Social Media Policy - Social media policy | mhs homes or Privacy Notice Privacy Notice | mhs homes for more details.

3. Complaint handling personnel

3.1 The Customer Experience Team

The Customer Experience Team will triage the complaints that mhs receive, provide acknowledgements, exclusion letters, deal with reasonable adjustment requests, obtain third party consent, respond to quick resolution complaints, send responses on behalf of Complaint Handlers, send hold responses, and agree any extensions to the timescales with you.

3.2 Stage one complaint handlers

Stage One Complaint Handlers are Managers of the area you have complained about. They are responsible in fairly and impartially investigating your complaint, providing a full response and ensuring any outstanding actions or learning from are completed after the response has been issued.

3.3 Stage two complaint handlers

Stage Two Complaint Handlers are Assistant-Directors of the area you have complained about. They are responsible for investigating any stage two complaints and providing you with a final decision on your complaint.

3.4 Designated board member

We have a designated board member who is responsible for overseeing the success of the complaint process. They will monitor overall outcomes found from our complaint data and ensure that any learning from or outstanding actions identified in complaints are completed within timescales set.

3.5 Conflicts of interest

Conflicts of interest are identified at application and interview stage of any mhs employee. However, we expect any complaint handling personnel to declare any conflicts of interest before starting a complaint. An alternative and appropriate employee will replace them in their duties, in these instances.

3.6 Complaints spanning across multiple service areas

In the event your complaint involves more than one area or team, then you will receive one co-ordinated response from the lead Complaint Handler that has the largest portion or highest priority of the complaint.

4. Complaint handling principles

4.1 Content of acknowledgements

Your acknowledgement will include the following:

  • Our understanding of your complaint
  • The outcomes you wish to seek
  • The timescales of the investigation
  • Your complaint reference
  • The details of the Complaint Handler that will be investigating your complaint

If required, we will try to contact you by telephone to gain any further information required to start our investigation, before sending an acknowledgement. In the event we do not get hold of you, we may also include the following in your written acknowledgement:

  • Any details requiring clarification
  • A request for any further evidence that may support your complaint
  • Details on whether your desired outcome is unreasonable or unrealistic

The Complaint Handler assigned your case, will continue to investigate your complaint and may try to call you again to determine the above.

4.2 Staff complaints

If a complaint is about one of our employees, then we will investigate it in line with this policy. If this investigation results in questions around the employee’s conduct, then any required action will follow our Staff Disciplinary Policy and the investigation will pass to the individual’s line manager. You will be made aware of what went wrong and our learnings from these complaints.

4.3 Anonymous complaints

If we receive an anonymous complaint that raises a safeguarding or whistleblowing issue, this will be dealt with under the relevant policy.

Our ability to fully explore and feedback on the issue may be limited due to the nature of anonymous complaints. We will record, investigate, and monitor anonymous complaints in the same way that we treat other feedback.

Depending on the details you provide, we may be unable to provide you with a response. Therefore, you may also be unable to escalate to stage two of our complaints process.

4.4 Safeguarding

If you report, or we suspect, that abuse or neglect is taking place, we will refer to our safeguarding policies and procedures. You can also report allegations of abuse and neglect directly to the local authority.

4.5 Managing unreasonable complainant behaviour

We commit to all complaints being investigated fairly, honestly, consistently and appropriately, in line with this policy. However, in a minority of cases people pursue their complaints in a way which can delay and prolong the investigation of their complaint and absorb a disproportionate amount of staff time. In such circumstances, we may choose to apply our Managing Unreasonable Complainant Behaviour policy to a complainant. Please see Managing Unreasonable Complainant Behaviour Policy | mhs homes for more details.

4.6 Timeframes

Acknowledgement

5 Working days

Stage One Response

10 Working days

Stage One Response with Extension

20 Working days

Stage Two Response

20 Working days

Stage Two Response with Extension

30 Working days

Any complaint received before 17:00 during working hours Monday to Friday, will be logged as received that day. Any complaint received after 17:00 will be logged as received the following working day. Please note that Complaint Handlers may not work during bank holidays so an extra day will be given for each bank holiday day that occurs during the ten-day period.

Where possible the Customer Experience Team will always try to respond and put right any complaint straight away, providing you with a quick resolution. If they are unable to do this within five working days, then you will receive an acknowledgement in receipt of your stage one complaint.

All Stage One Complaints are to be investigated and responded to within ten working days of you making a complaint.

All Stage Two Complaints are to be investigated and responded to within 20 working days of you making a complaint.

4.7 Holding responses

Although we always aim to respond to you quickly and in line with our stated timeframes, there are some occasions where there is good reason to not respond within the ten working days. Should this happen, we will send you a holding response. After this we will have a further ten working days to finalise our response and provide this to you.

For Stage One Complaints, should we reach a total of 20 working days and still not be in the position to provide you with a response, then we will contact you to see if we can agree a date for us to respond. You can choose to escalate your complaint to stage two of our complaints process instead.

For Stage Two Complaints, should we reach a total of 30 working days and still not be in the position to provide you with a response, then we will contact you to see if we can agree a date for us to respond. You can choose to escalate your complaint to the Housing Ombudsman instead.

4.8 Additional issues

If you raise additional complaints during the investigation, these will be incorporated into the stage one response if they are relevant and the stage one response has not been issued. Where the stage one response has been issued, or it would unreasonably delay the response, the additional complaints will be logged as new complaints. You will be notified, and a new complaint acknowledgement will be issued to you with another complaint reference.

5. Complaint stages

5.1 Making a stage one complaint

Your complaint will need to include the following details:

  • Your full name and contact details (unless making an anonymous complaint)
  • Details about how the standard of service, actions or lack of action by mhs, its own staff, or those acting on its behalf, have not been met to a satisfactory level
  • Any dates or times of events that occurred
  • Any evidence you have, to support your complaint
  • How you would like your complaint to be resolved
  • Any reasonable adjustment requests, including best methods of contact

5.2 Stage one complaint investigation

The Stage One Complaint Handler will do the following when investigating your stage one complaint:

  • Should clarification still be required, contact you to gain the information
  • When appropriate, contact you to discuss your complaint
  • When appropriate, arrange to visit your property or area of concern
  • Review any information you supply as evidence
  • Review any information or data mhs holds in relation to your complaint
  • If required, contact any third party working on behalf of mhs
  • If required, obtain statements from employees
  • Consider any current Policies, Legislation and written internal processes relevant to your case

5.3 Stage one complaint response

Your response from the Complaint Handler will include the following:

  • The stage of the complaint
  • Our complaint definition
  • The decision we have reached
  • Reasons for the decision
  • Details of any remedies offered to resolve your complaint
  • Details of any outstanding actions
  • Details on how to escalate to stage two
  • The Housing Ombudsman’s details

5.4 Decision

The decision to your stage one complaint will be one of the following:

  • Upheld – This is when we agree with your complaint and have identified that we have failed against our Policies or processes
  • Partially upheld – This is when we agree with some of your complaint and have identified failures. Another part of your complaint we do not agree with, and we have not identified any failures
  • Not upheld – This is when we do not agree with your complaint, and we have not identified any failures

5.5 Reasons to escalate to stage two

Should you feel any of the below statements are correct, then you can request to escalate your complaint to stage two of our complaints process:

  • You feel we have not properly investigated your complaint in line with this Policy
  • You provide further evidence to support your case, and would like it to be reviewed
  • Outstanding actions were not completed within the given timescale, without reasonable justification and you being updated
  • You dispute the remedy offered to you
  • You feel your complaint was not handled fairly and / or impartially by the Complaint Handler
  • You disagree with the decision
  • You feel the stage one response is unclear

Please note we will only accept an escalation to stage two if it has been requested within 30 days of the date your stage one complaint response was issued. We can offer our discretion to this exclusion if an agreed remedy exceeds the 30-day limitation.

5.6 Making a stage two complaint

To escalate to stage two, you will need to provide us with the following:

  • Your name and address
  • Your Stage One Complaint reference
  • Which of the stated reasons you are escalating under and why
  • Any further evidence you have, that supports your escalation request
  • Your desired outcome

5.7 Stage two complaint investigation

The Stage Two Complaint Handler will do the following when investigating your stage two complaint:

  • When appropriate, contact you to discuss your complaint
  • When appropriate, arrange to visit your property or area of concern
  • Conduct a meeting with the Complaint Handler that dealt with your stage one complaint
  • Review any information you supply as evidence
  • Review any information the Complaint Handler supplies
  • Review all the stage one investigation communications and documents
  • Consider any current Policies, Legislation and written internal processes relevant to your case

5.8 Stage two complaint response

The Stage Two Complaint Handler will make an informal and impartial decision on your stage two complaint and issue you with a full and final response. This will include the following:

  • The stage of the complaint
  • Our complaint definition
  • The decision we have reached
  • Reasons for the decision
  • Details of any remedies offered to resolve your complaint
  • Details of any outstanding actions
  • Details on how to escalate your complaint to the Housing Ombudsman

5.8 External escalation

Stage two is the final stage to review a complaint at mhs. If you still feel remain dissatisfied and do not agree with our findings, then you can refer your complaint to the Housing Ombudsman. More information can be found at www.housing-ombudsman.org.uk .

Please note that we will not accept further complaints about the same issue, where a stage two decision has been reached and communicated to you.

Where we are providing services on behalf of a local authority you can also complain to your local authority or consult the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman. This will apply to some residents in sheltered housing or in our Foyers.

If you are receiving services from a charitable foundation, you can refer your complaint to the Charity Commission.

If your complaint relates to service charges or rent adjustments, you can refer the issue to the First Tier Tribunal at any stage in your dispute.

6. Putting things right

6.1 Remedy

Should we uphold or partially uphold your complaint, then we will look at how we can appropriately remedy the issue. Alongside a meaningful apology and explanation, we will also consider the following:

  • Outstanding actions to be completed, such as repairs
  • Updating records
  • Reconsidering or changing a decision
  • Learning from your complaint by putting in place actions to avoid reoccurrence of failures
  • Compensation in line with our Compensation Policy

6.2 Outstanding actions

If it has been identified during the investigation stage that remedial action needs to be taken to remedy your complaint, then this will be sent to the relevant team to arrange and complete.

You will be informed in your response of the remedial actions and where possible we will provide you with a date on when you can expect this to be completed.

Should the remedial actions fail to happen or not completed to a satisfactory standard then you can request for your complaint to be escalated to stage two of our complaint procedure.

We will keep a record of any remedial actions agreed in complaint responses to monitor any trends. Trends will be raised with our Leadership Team and Designated Board Member and potentially raised as additional ‘learning from’ changes to be made.

7. Continuous learning and improvement

7.1 Learning from complaints

Complaints offer us an opportunity to learn how to better serve our residents and to not repeat the same mistakes again. This could be in the form of:

  • A change of Policy
  • A change of process or procedure
  • Training
  • Review of contracts
  • Employee disciplinary

If it has been identified from your complaint that we need to improve, then we will make you aware of what the Complaint Handler has recommended the service to do.

Learning from will be monitored on a regular basis to ensure the corrective actions have been appropriately addressed.

7.2 Quality and assurance

We will conduct quality checks on how complaints have been logged, investigated, and responded to, in line with this Policy.

8. Self-assessment and compliance

8.1 Self–assessment

The Housing Ombudsman set a requirement that participating landlords must carry out an annual self-assessment against the Complaint Handling Code and publish the results. As a participating member we review our Complaint Policy and procedures annually and publish these results to the mhs website. We publish the findings to our self-assessment on our website you can download our self-assessment . Our latest self-assessment highlighted areas of improvement which has driven the changes in this Policy.

Monitoring and assurance

To monitor the effectiveness of this policy and that it is delivering the expected outcomes, we will measure performance using the following measures:

  • Volume of complaints received
  • % all complaints acknowledged within 5 working days
  • % stage one complaints responded to within 10 working days
  • % stage two complaints responded to within 20 working days
  • % complaints upheld vs. not upheld at stage 1
  • % complaints upheld vs. not upheld at stage 2
  • % Outstanding actions completed within stated timeframes
  • % Learning from actions completed within stated timeframes
  • Complaints upheld vs not upheld by Housing Ombudsman
  • Customer feedback in Customer Satisfaction Surveys

Principles

Discretion

mhs homes reserves the right to use discretion when applying this policy and may deal with a complaint differently where individual circumstances merit it. Any discretion will be applied fairly and appropriately, and all complaints will be progressed as far as possible to maximise the opportunity to resolve a dispute.

Equality statement

mhs homes has a duty to ensure that no person receives less favourable treatment from the organisation on the grounds of age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage, civil partnership, pregnancy, religion or belief, race, sex or sexual orientation.

Data protection

mhs homes will only share information that meets the requirements of the Data Protection Act 2018.  Confidentiality and impartiality will be exercised by mhs homes at all times.

Feedback

We welcome suggestions and comments from people who use or provide our services. We believe that this can provide some important lessons to help us ensure that the service is improved for everyone.

 

If you have something to say about this policy or the information that is provided about them, then please let us know. Please refer any comments to the author of this document.