Agenda item

To present to Cabinet an Annual Complaints Performance and Service Improvement report for scrutiny and challenge, which includes a self-assessment carried out against the Housing Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code for 2023/24 prior to publication and submission.

RESOLVED that Cabinet –

(a)    endorses the Portfolio Holder for Housing and Planning performing the role of Member Responsible for Complaints for the purposes of the Housing Ombudsman Complaint Handling Code and associated guidance;

(b)    in accordance with the Housing Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code and in compliance with Cabinet’s scrutiny and oversight requirements, formally receives the Council’s Annual Complaints Performance and Service Improvement Report, which includes the Annual Self-assessment against the Code, as set out in Appendices A and B to this report (A.5);

(c)    formally provides its response to the Annual Complaints Performance and Service Improvement report, for publication as follows:-

“We thank Councillor Baker for presenting this report to Cabinet today. We fully endorse everything that he has said and warmly welcome the content of the report and its recommendations.

As a Cabinet we recognise the importance of providing good quality housing and that responding to complaints forms an important part of that service.

We fully support and adopt the Housing Ombudsman’s revised complaint handling code and are committed to high quality complaint handling. It is important that we learn from all complaints and provide a positive response.

We support Councillor Baker, as Housing Portfolio Holder, taking on responsibility for housing complaints and he will ensure that we as a Cabinet receive regular information and updates on complaints, in particular, what they tell us about our housing service, what we have learnt from them and what we have done to put things right.

It is notable that the number of complaints received has been increasing and that is something that will be explored over the coming months to see what we can do better as part of a programme of continuous improvement for our housing service.”

(d)    authorises Officers to publish both the Report and the Cabinet’s response on the Council’s website within the section relating to complaints and to submit the self-assessment to the Housing Ombudsman by 30 June 2024; and

(e)   notes that there is to be a review in 2024/25 of the Council’s Corporate and Housing Complaints procedures to deliver the expectations of the now closely aligned Local Government & Social Care and Housing Ombudsmen Codes.

Earlier on in the meeting, as detailed under Minute 4 above, Councillor Bray had declared for the public record that he was a housing tenant of this Council.

Cabinet considered a report of the Housing & Planning Portfolio Holder (A.5), which presented to it an Annual Complaints Performance and Service Improvement report for scrutiny and challenge, which included a self-assessment carried out against the Housing Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code for 2023/24 prior to its publication and submission.

Members were informed that, in July 2020, the Housing Ombudsman had published a new Complaint Handling Code (“the Code”) that provided a framework for high-quality complaint handling and greater consistency across landlord’s complaint procedures. Its aim was to enable landlords to resolve complaints raised by their residents quickly and to use the learning from complaints to drive service improvements. That Code had been revised in 2022 to make it explicit about what was mandatory and where it was appropriate for landlords to use their discretion to achieve best practice in complaint handling.

Cabinet was reminded that prior to the implementation of those revisions, complaints against the Council, as a landlord, had been dealt with under the Corporate Complaints Policy. However, the revision of the Code and self-assessment at the time had resulted in a stand-alone procedure being developed for handling complaints received regarding the Council in its capacity as a landlord to ensure that it met all of the requirements of the Code.

Members were made aware that, following the implementation of the Social Housing (Regulation Act) 2023, the Housing Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code had become statutory on 1 April 2024. This had been accompanied by a further revision of the Code and the Council’s Housing Complaints Policy had been amended to take account of those changes.

It was drawn to Members’ attention that the Complaint Handling Code 2024 required landlords to produce an annual complaints performance and service improvement report for scrutiny and challenge and that this information should be presented to the landlord’s governing body. As part of this, landlords were required to look beyond the circumstances of individual complaints and consider whether any service improvements could be made as a result of learning from complaints.

The annual complaints performance and service improvement report also included a self-assessment against the Code and this information also needed to be published.

Cabinet was advised that the Social Housing (Regulation) Act 2023 also placed a duty on the Housing Ombudsman to monitor compliance with its statutory Complaint Handling Code and to assist with this, all landlords were required to submit their self-assessment to the Housing Ombudsman by 30 June each year, commencing in 2024.

It was also noted that the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman and the Housing Ombudsman had been working closely to harmonise the respective Codes for Complaint Handling. In late 2023 the two Ombudsman services had consulted on a single code across both of their areas of responsibilities. In recognition of the different legal powers the organisations held, the conclusion reached was to produce two closely aligned Codes for complaint handling. In view of this, it was timely to look at the harmonisation of the Corporate and Housing Complaints procedures to deliver the expectations of the closely aligned Ombudsman Codes. This review would be programmed within 2024/25.

In order to formally approve the self-assessment carried out before its submission to the Housing Ombudsman:-

It was moved by Councillor Baker, seconded by Councillor Kotzand:-

RESOLVED that Cabinet –

(a)    endorses the Portfolio Holder for Housing and Planning performing the role of Member Responsible for Complaints for the purposes of the Housing Ombudsman Complaint Handling Code and associated guidance;

(b)    in accordance with the Housing Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code and in compliance with Cabinet’s scrutiny and oversight requirements, formally receives the Council’s Annual Complaints Performance and Service Improvement Report, which includes the Annual Self-assessment against the Code, as set out in Appendices A and B to this report (A.5);

(c)    formally provides its response to the Annual Complaints Performance and Service Improvement report, for publication as follows:-

“We thank Councillor Baker for presenting this report to Cabinet today. We fully endorse everything that he has said and warmly welcome the content of the report and its recommendations.

As a Cabinet we recognise the importance of providing good quality housing and that responding to complaints forms an important part of that service.

We fully support and adopt the Housing Ombudsman’s revised complaint handling code and are committed to high quality complaint handling. It is important that we learn from all complaints and provide a positive response.

We support Councillor Baker, as Housing Portfolio Holder, taking on responsibility for housing complaints and he will ensure that we as a Cabinet receive regular information and updates on complaints, in particular, what they tell us about our housing service, what we have learnt from them and what we have done to put things right.

It is notable that the number of complaints received has been increasing and that is something that will be explored over the coming months to see what we can do better as part of a programme of continuous improvement for our housing service.”

(d)    authorises Officers to publish both the Report and the Cabinet’s response on the Council’s website within the section relating to complaints and to submit the self-assessment to the Housing Ombudsman by 30 June 2024; and

(e)   notes that there is to be a review in 2024/25 of the Council’s Corporate and Housing Complaints procedures to deliver the expectations of the now closely aligned Local Government & Social Care and Housing Ombudsmen Codes.