Complaints Annual Report
We’re proud to have a culture that’s open to complaints and learning from your feedback. We’re aiming to be more open when things go wrong and say sorry when we need too. We’ve reduced the volume of outstanding complaints by a third this year, dedicating resources across our teams to resolve long standing issues. We’re also embedding a framework that makes sure we’re taking positive action to improve services, as a result of this feedback.
We’re fully compliant with the Housing Ombudsman Service (HOS) Code which came into force in April 2024.
We've doubled the size of our Customer Resolution Team to improve our responsiveness, manage our complaints consistently and ensure we learn from customer feedback. We’ve reviewed the ‘spotlight’ reports published by the Housing Ombudsman and carried out a gap analysis to make sure we improve based on the learnings and best practice they set out.
We know we don't always get it right and we're working to do better. You’ve told us that it takes too long to complete repairs and answer your calls, that some of our processes and communication aren’t good enough and we don’t always manage complex requests well. We’re listening and have put an improvement plan in place to help resolve these issues which is also featured in the report.
We now report annually on complaints and service improvements we're making in response and are sharing this here, alongside our Boards response below.
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Our Board response
The Board are committed to supporting a culture where complaints are welcomed and used to learn, grow and improve . We believe in being open and honest when things go wrong, saying sorry when we need to and working closely with customers and the Housing Ombudsman to put things right.
The Board oversee s how Golding Homes perform s in relation to complaints, which includes ;
- respond ing to complaints within the target timescales set out in our policy ,
- v olumes of complaints,
- themes and actions to improve because of complaints .
We also have a Board member whose role is to champion complaints and learning from them.
Last year we identified that whilst we investigated complaints promptly, there were too many complaints with actions open for a long time, where customers were waiting too long for their issues to be fully resolved. We set some targets on this to improve, which has reduced our outstanding complaints by over a third.
We know we’ve more to do to improve services and over the last year, the Board have asked colleagues to develop clear plans to improve areas we see as themes of dissatisfaction. We’ve also doubled the size of our complaints team to ensure we’re more responsive and can give customers a named contact to talk to and help resolve complaints when things go wrong.
We know from our scrutiny of complaints and customer feedback, that improving our repairs service, the way we communicate, and the condition of our homes are important priorities. We’ve set targets to monitor and deliver improvements in performance. Alongside this we’ve agreed a new Asset Management Strategy that sees £60 million invested in improving our homes in the next three years. In the next year alone we’ll be putting in 300 new kitchens, 173 new bathrooms, 460 new boilers, 400 new windows, 464 new doors and 40 pitched roofs. In all, 1409 of our homes will have a major improvement in the coming year. We’ve improved our approach to tackle and remove damp and mould in our homes more quickly. We’re investing in the team and our homes to resolve longer term issues and in 2024/25 we’ll spend an extra £700K to reduce damp and mould.
We’ll continue listening to our customers and acting on their feedback to improve our services.