Compliments, comments, and complaints

1. Purpose

To provide an overview of the complaints received in Housing, including numbers, nature, and response times.

To provide assurance to Executive Leadership Team and the Board of Trustees of appropriate complaint handling and implementation of lessons learned.

Provide the opportunity to scrutinise complaint service improvement plans.

2. Annual Figures

2.1 Number of complaints

2.2. Exclusions

All housing complaints were accepted and responded to.

2.3. Complaint response performance

3. Nacro’s Compliments, Comments and Complaints Policy

Our full policy is available here, on our website, alongside our Compensation Policy.

Policy summary:

If a compliment or comment is raised, Nacro will respond within five days to acknowledge the feedback and thank the submitter for getting in touch.

For complaints, Nacro have a two-stage process.

A complaint is an expression of dissatisfaction, however made, with the standard of Nacro’s service, actions, or lack of action could reasonably be expected of Nacro, or those acting on its behalf, affecting an individual resident or group of residents or students.

This could include:

1. Failure to follow up or notify the Service User about appropriate action following initial contact.
2. Failure or lengthy delay in providing a service or to take an action which Nacro said they could provide or take.
3. Failure to comply with a policy.
4. The inappropriate behaviour of Nacro employees or contractor.

Stage one

Nacro will acknowledge the complaint within five working days. The manager for the service will investigate and provide a written response within 10 working days.

If a complainant is dissatisfied with Nacro’s response at stage one, they can request for their complaint to be handled at the next stage. Nacro will always speak to the complainant to understand what parts of the complaint response they are dissatisfied with, and what actions they are looking for to resolve the issue.

Stage two

An acknowledgement letter will be sent within five working days of receipt of the stage two complaint. The complaint will be referred for review to a more senior manager. This could be an area manager, the head of service or centre manager. They will investigate and a written response will be provided within 20 working days.

Promoting the policy: A new complaints policy leaflet has been created, see below. This is shared with service users in welcome packs and displayed in services.

When the Nacro website was upgraded, a new pro-forma was added to make it easier for complaints to be made and received by Nacro. The complaints mailbox is monitored daily to ensure swift responses to complaints. The QR code on the poster directs to the pro-forma on the website, to enable easy access.

4. Complaint topics and trends

The complaints from service users mainly related to the service they received. These centred around:

• Staff members available and responsiveness.
• Tenants dissatisfied in how a procedure has been applied or alleging it has been applied incorrectly.
• Property condition and repairs

Areas of housing complaints

There were three services with a higher-than-average number of complaints. The two services with the most complaints relate to staff members responsiveness. The management team are aware of these issues, both through complaints and other performance reporting, and have put in place management plans to respond to the concerns highlighted.

Anti-social behaviour

Most complaints coming via the Nacro website are categorised on our website as being received from a ‘Member of Public’ and tend to be reports of anti-social behaviour.

A report of anti-social behaviour is not a complaint. This is because they are not a complaint about a service Nacro provide or are in direct control of. However, we understand the distressing impact anti-social behaviour can have, for our tenants and neighbours, and we want to proactively resolve any issues reported to us.

We know that we have an important role in addressing anti-social behaviour and must work effectively with our partner agencies such as the Police and the Local Authority to resolve these issues.  We recognise that where reports of anti-social behaviour relate to tenancy matters, we have a larger role to play in resolving them and want to do our upmost to ensure that we are a good neighbour. Because of this, we often accept reports of anti-social behaviour as complaints and respond to them in this way.

Guaranteeing that we fulfil our responsibilities and find resolution for both complaints and antisocial behaviour is a priority for Nacro, and the section below outlines new resources we have committed to ensure we can respond appropriately to anti-social behaviour.

5. Service improvements as the result of complaints:

These are the measures that have been put in place throughout the year as themes and issues were highlighted through complaints.

Recording and record keeping:

• Timely responses – to support effective and timely complaint resolution, the Quality and Safeguarding team have begun monthly audits of complaint handling to address any issues that have arisen in that month.
• New, external training around complaints handling has been procured from the Housing Quality Network.
• The online complaints form has been updated to ensure all relevant information is captured.
• A housing complaints improvement plan in place to monitor performance against the complaint handling code.

Housing management:

• Occupancy sustainment training, which includes management of arrears, former tenant arrears and ending a tenancy is being rolled out to all teams.
• We have enhanced our capacity and skills to respond to anti-social behaviour, including training for teams on responding to and tackling anti-social behaviour.
• A new Anti-social behaviour policy and procedure is in place to support teams to respond.
• New anti-social behaviour expertise/personnel has been introduced into the Housing Management team to support operational teams to manage incidents as they arise.

Property Condition:

• We have increased the resources in the property maintenance team to support increased post-repair inspections.
• We have reviewed and improved the system to ensure property repairs that the head landlord (not Nacro) is responsible for, are recorded accurately and completed in a timely fashion.

6. Nacro’s plans for service improvements in 2024/25:

As a result of this annual review and our ongoing complaint improvement plan, we have committed to the following measures.

Ease of making a complaint:

• New, advertised complaint number with embedded QR code.
• Improved website pro-forma.
• Launch a new complaints leaflet.

Quality assurance:

• Nacro wide complaint improvement plan with responsibility shared between the housing and Chief Executives office.
• One complaint policy for all Nacro services (housing, justice & health, and education services)
• Complaint policy peer reviewed by the Housing Quality Network.
• The Quality and Safeguarding team to actively manage and support all live complaints being responded to locally.

7. Compensation

The Compensation Policy was new in February 2024 and has been applied four times to date. Three occasions were to tenants.

8. Staff training

New staff training has been procured from the Housing Quality Network, to upskill our teams in responding to complaints, with a focus on staff members resolving the issues raised and rebuilding the relationship of trust with the service user.

All staff briefings on the new complaints policy are taking place across 2024/25 Q2.

9. Regulatory updates

Complaints made about our accommodation services are governed by the Housing Ombudsman Service. Through the new RSH Consumer Standards, their complaint handling code is now on a statutory footing. We have demonstrated our compliance with the code in the self-assessment document that is here, on our website.

Our Compliments, Comments and Complaints Policy has been updated to ensure it reflects the Housing Ombudsman’s expectations.

To meet the new requirements, we now have a Trustee responsible for complaints – Philippa Oldmeadow. The Head of Quality and Safeguarding and Head of Executive Office will be meeting with her at least quarterly between Executive Leadership Team and the Board of Trustees to review our performance.

Our poor performance in responding to complaints in a timely fashion is our biggest risk of non-compliance with the Housing Ombudsman’s expectations. We recognise improvement is needed in this area, while previous improvement attempts have not had the outcomes desired. The Quality and Safeguarding team are working with the CEO Office to jointly drive service improvements. We will be reporting to the Executive team on our progress.

No complaints have been referred to the Housing Ombudsman in the period.

10. 2024/25 Reporting 

From 1^st April 2024 the follow KPIs will be to be reported to Executive Leadership Team and the Board of Trustees:

• (For context, not KPI) Stage 1: number of complaints:
• Percentage of stage one complaints acknowledged within 5 days.
• Percentage of stage one complaints responded to within 10 days.
• (For context, not KPI) Stage 2: number of complaints escalated to stage 2
• Percentage of stage two complaints responded to within 20 days.

This quarterly report will be expanded to include complaints from Justice and Health services and Education. This report will be brought to Executive Leadership Team and the Board of Trustees (and the Education Committee).

A comment from our board

This report outlines a positive baseline for Nacro’s management of housing complaints; however, we know that there is work to do. We are committed to listening to, and positively resolving, the concerns shared with us by our tenants, neighbours and wider stakeholders and will continue to work closely with them to drive improvements and best practise with regards to our complaints management.

In year, we have rolled out a new complaints policy and procedure, implemented several improvement activities and undertaken a thorough self-assessment against the Housing Ombudsman’s complaint handling code which has formed the basis of our complaints improvement plan.

We have additional development activity planned for the 24/25 financial year which we are confident will further improve our complaints handling and enhance the quality of our reporting.

We’ll acknowledge your complaint within five working days. The service lead for the service will investigate and provide a written response within 10 working days.

If you are dissatisfied with our response at stage one you can request for your complaint to be handled at the next stages. We will always speak to you to understand what parts of the complaint response you are dissatisfied with, and what actions you are looking for to resolve the issue.

An acknowledgement letter will be sent within five working days of receipt of the stage two complaint. Your complaint will be referred for review to a more senior manager. This could be an area manager, the head of service or centre manager. They will investigate and a written response will be provided within 20 working days.

We are covered by the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS). You can get in touch with them free of charge, if you feel that Nacro have not dealt with your complaint fairly.

Taking a complaint to the FOS will not affect your legal rights.

Contact details

Financial Ombudsman Service
Exchange Tower
London
E14 9SR

0300 1239123
0800 0234567

complaint.info@financial-ombudsman.org.uk

You can find more information about the FOS on its website

www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk

We deal with complaints following The Housing Ombudsman Services Complaint Handling Code. This means we follow their best practice guidance.

You will need to ensure that you have exhausted our complaints process before the Housing Ombudsman will fully investigate your complaint, however you can seek general advice and assistance at any point of your complaint.

You can find more information about the Housing Ombudsman Service and what it can help with on its website: www.housing-ombudsman.org.uk

Contact Details

Housing Ombudsman Service
PO Box 1484
Unit D
Preston
PR2 0ET

Telephone: 0300 111 3000 (lines are open Monday to Friday from 9:15am to 5:15pm except public holidays)

Email: info@housing-ombudsman.org.uk

The Housing Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code promotes the progressive use of complaints, providing a framework to support effective handling and prevention alongside learning and development. The Code enables landlords to resolve complaints raised by their service users and residents quickly and to use the learning from complaints to drive service improvements.

Nacro has completed an assessment against the Complaints Handling Code and confirms that it meets all mandatory requirements as set out by the Housing Ombudsman. The details of the assessment can be found here.

If your complaint is about one of our education centre you can contact the Education and Skills Funding Agency directly.

Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA)
complaints.ESFA@education.gov.uk

Complaints team
Education and Skills Funding Agency
Cheylesmore House
Quinton Road
Coventry
CV1 2WT

Young people can contact The Children’s Commissioner’s Officer. Her job is to promote and safeguard the rights of children and young people. The Children’s Commissioner can be contacted as follows:

Call: 0800 528 0731
Email: advice.team@childrenscommissioner.gsi.gov.uk

Children & Young People can also contact their Independent Reviewing Officer and Ofsted
Officer