Season 5 episode 4 – June 2024

Complaint Handling Code podcast with Housing Ombudsman Service

Anthea Chilton

Hello and thank you very much for tuning into this podcast. I'm Anthea Chilton. I'm one of the sector learning and development leads here at the Housing Ombudsman service. I'm joined today by two of my colleagues from the duty to monitor team. Strong, Duty to Monitor manager, and Danielle Cook, Duty to Monitor lead. Jaimie and Danielle are here to talk to us about the Complaint Handling Code and what's changed since it became statutory 1 April this year. I have some questions for you, Jaimie and Danielle. But before we get started, would you like to introduce yourselves and tell us a little bit about the duty to monitor team?

Jaimie Strong

Hi, Anthia. Yeah, sure. So, my name is Jaimie and I'm one of the managers in the duty to monitor team. I've worked at the Housing Ombudsman since December 2020, originally from our Dispute Support team, and then I join the duty to monitor project team in November 2023.

Danielle Cook

Hello, so, I’m Danny. I'm a Duty to monitor lead and I join the Ombudsman in March last year and was also originally working in Dispute Support as a Dispute Resolution advisor. So that was until I joined the project team shortly after Jamie in November last year. So, we've both been involved in the Ombudsman's work to consult on the Complaint Handling Code and develop the approach from the start. Really, it has been a really good opportunity to engage with sector, including residents. This is really helping to shape the new Code and decide how our duty to monitor is going to work in practice.

Jaimie Strong

The Duty to Monitor team is a really new team, which came about following the changes in the Social Housing Regulation Act. Our focus really is to ensure that our members are aware of the new requirements of the ode, monitor compliance in a meaningful way and to make sure that we share learning across the sector.

Anthea Chilton

Thanks, Jamie and Danny. So, my first question to set us off then, what is the Complaint Handling Code?

Danielle Cook

So, the Complaint Handling Code, sometimes you might hear us referring to it as just the Code in this conversation as well is basically a Code of best practice for landlords for their complaint handling procedures. So, the Code sets out consistent standards for complaint handling and aims to increase consistency and fairness across the social housing sector, so that residents don't experience a kind of postcode lottery when it comes to having their complaints heard and resolved. I think the Code also promotes positive resident landlord relationships so that residents can feel confident and empower to raise complaints and so that landlords can put things right when they go wrong. I think this includes weight raising, awareness and accessibility of the complaints process also, so ensuring that residents have a choice in how their concerns are dealt with.

Jaimie Strong

And then beyond this, the Code sets out expectations for landlords to look at complaints as more than just a transaction and to use them to identify opportunities to learn and make improvements that will benefit residents and landlords. The Code is now mandatory, and all landlords are required to comply.

Anthea Chilton

Okay, that's great. Thank you. So now that the Code is mandatory, please could you tell us what are the key changes to the Code?

Jaimie Strong

Yeah, so in terms of the provisions themselves, the biggest change to the Code is that all provisions are now mandatory. Previously, the Code was split into mandatory and best practice sections, and this is no longer the case. So, since 1 April 2024, all Landlords are now required to meet all of the provisions in the Code. And this just really ensures that complaint handling expectations are clear and measurable. As part of this, we've also set clear requirements for the complaints process to ensure consistency across the sector. The so all complaints processes must have two stages only, including where a third party like a contractor managing agent is handling complaints made about their service. This.

Danielle Cook

I think, similar to that, a Code also aims to ensure that residents are not prevented from making a complaint such as through informal complaint stages or stage 0, which we do see in our casework. And you know, really these aren't ideal as they delay resolutions. So, these are no longer acceptable approaches. Instead, residents must be given the choice to make a complaint if they've express dissatisfaction. If an alternative is agreed with the resident and they don't want to have a complaint, of course, it's important to respect their decision. I think it's more about removing potential barriers, not pushing a process. So, I think we've included some useful flow charts as well for landlords at the end of the Code, which aim to help them navigate this balance effectively. I think it is really important as well that landlord make sure that any member of staff that a resident may raise concerns with receives training and is clear on the process.

Jaimie Strong

And we've clarified provisions around exclusions to accepting or escalating a complaint. So, the time scale has been extended from six months to 12 months for accepting a complaint. And residents are no longer required to set out their reasons for requesting to escalate complaint. These changes aim to encourage landlords to use the complaint as an opportunity to rebuild relationships with residents, particularly where issues have been s rumbling for a long time. It means that residents are no longer required to justify why they're unhappy with the stage 1 response. Cuz we often have residents come to us struggling with this, but it also means that landlords cannot refuse to escalate a complaint if they feel, if they don't feel that the reasons presented are good enough.

Danielle Cook

That the Code is also clearer on the timescales for responding to complaints. This was an area in the consultation that received a lot of comments from manuals and residents. So now each stage has a five-day acknowledgement period. And landlords do need to set out the definition of the complaint at this stage to make sure that they've got, there's a mutual understanding of the issues that need to be addressed. We've also recognised other feedback from the consultation that there may be times that a complaint needs to be extended. So, I think some reasons for this might be because of the complexity of the issues or the residence availability or just the need to involve a specialist in the case. So, the Code sets out acceptable time scales for each stage and asks landlords to communicate the need for an extension at the earliest possible opportunity so that residents know when they can expect a response. And the reason really for any extensions.

Jaimie Strong

Then just linking back to something we mentioned earlier, Anthea, which was when we mentioned a bit about the key aim of the Code and it being to ensure that landlords are looking beyond individual complaints for any underlying causes. By taking this approach, landlords can really use complaints as the canary and the coal mine to identify any emerging issues that can be nipped in the bud before something more serious occurs.

Jaimie Strong

The Code requires landlords to regularly review and assess trends, both at the operational and the board level, to ensure the accountability for complaint handling is embedded across the whole organization. And this is a crucial role for the Member Responsible for Complaints (MRC), the MRC, which is a new requirement in the Code. This is a person, a board member, who is expected to champion complaints as a positive opportunity to learn and make changes within the organisation. Where needed, we've worked with colleagues across the sector to develop guidance to support the MRC. And in actual fact, we're running our second MRC conference later this year as a space for discussing challenges, achievements, could practice, test. And then the aim is to share all of this good stuff across the sector.

Danielle Cook

The last change, so I'm going to mention, but probably the most fundamental for landlords is that they're now required to provide a submission to the ombudsman every year. So, this is for them to demonstrate how they comply with the Code. As well as this, the Ombudsman has a legal duty to monitor that compliance with the Code. So due to those changes that Jane mentioned earlier, due to the Social Housing Regulation Act. So, we will be reviewing each submission from all our members.

Anthea Chilton

No, it's just to be thinking about there. Thank you both very much. You mentioned that landlords need to provide a submission each year to demonstrate how they comply with the Code. And as part of that, that's a landlord completing itself assessment against the provisions of the Code. So, what are the key considerations for landlords when completing the self assessment?

Jaimie Strong

One thing, the most important thing is to encourage Donald to be truly open and honest with themselves when completing the self assessment. It should be more than a simple tick box activity, and we've issued guidance to support and encourage landlords to use this as an option, change it to really reflect on the approach that they're taking to handle complaints and to ensure themselves that they really are delivering the next excellent service.

Danielle Cook

Yeah, throughout webinars, actually, we've heard some really interesting approaches that landlords have been taken so far. So this is included asking resident scrutiny panels to challenge the draft assessments and to examine the evidence and give independent feedback. We've actually also heard of one landlord who has asked for three different staff members at different levels within the organization to complete the self assessment independently so that they can identify any gaps and in knowledge or experience. And these are kind of looked into and potentially remedied.

Jaimie Strong

We really encourage landlords to use our self assessment template on the website. And this will make sure that each provision is considered and addressed in full. Of course, landlords may wish to publish an alternative format taken into account their residence needs or views. But it is important that each provision is clearly in included and the landlord gives evidence to support its compliance.

Danielle Cook

And then it also as well, if I mean, if you do make any changes after completing the self assessment, you know, think about how the landlord is going to embed these changes, you know, have all the relevance staff had training on the changes. Are there any third parties involved in the complaints process? Are they aware of the changes? Is the landlord going to complete quality assurance exercises to make sure complaints being handled correctly? Those are all things that they can be considering in filling out that self assessment.

Anthea Chilton

It's really good to hear about some of the different ways that landlords have been completing their self assessments. And you talked about the self assessment template on the website and also suggested using it to help ensure that each provision of the Code has been considered. But when going through those provisions, what does it mean if a landlord doesn't meet one? What does it mean to be non compliant?

Danielle Cook

Yeah, so all landlords are required to comply with the provisions of the Code. So if they are unable to, then what we would expect is that they would set out in their self assessment how they have met the intentions in an alternative way. So even where an alternative meets the intention of the Code, it must be reported as non compliant. So this ensures that residents are clear of the landlord status and also what the alternative approach is. This will help landlords demonstrate that they're open and transparent, which we know is important to residents. So we're very aware that there might be some circumstances where it's reasonable that a landlord isn't compliant with a particular provision. So the example that we quite often use for this is where around or doesn't have a website. So we wouldn't expect it to create a website just to share its annual complaints, performance and Service Improvement Report. Oh, you might hear us referring to that as the annual publication as well, because it's quite a mouthful. But yeah, in SH, it should instead be able to demonstrate how it shares this report with its residents in other ways.

Anthea Chilton

Danny, so if that is the case, what should a landlord do if they're unable to comply with the provision of the Code.

Jaimie Strong

Yeah, so I'll just re kind of go carry on from what Danny was saying there. So if a landlord is not able to meet a provision, it is really important that they s set out, set this out in the publish self assessment and confirm it in their submission to the ombudsman. They should set out any reasons and how they've met the intentions in an alternative way or when they expect to be compliant.

Jaimie Strong

We recognize the time scales for achieving compliance may be challenging for some landlords. We're asking all landlords to continue with their submission and include details of any challenges they're facing with those expected time scales for compliance, we want to support landlords in achieving compliance and will assess each case on a case by case basis. If we decide that the explanation, the proposed timescale or alternative approaches is not fair or reasonable to residents. Then we will intervene and tell the landlord to take action to come to achieve compliance within a set timeframe. And then we'd follow up to make sure those actions have been completed.

Jaimie Strong

Since the Code was implemented in 2020, we have already sort of engaged with many landlords to ensure that they comply with the Code, where we've seen evidence that their approach is not fair or reasonable. And in the vast majority of cases, landlords work with us to resolve the issues really effectively.

Jaimie Strong

There is a small number of cases where we've issued a complaint handling failure order, which requires landlords to take action mission. These are formal decisions. They're published in our Quarterly Insight Report, and we share the outcomes of our interventions and the reasons for any failure orders being issued.

Anthea Chilton

Yeah, thanks, Jamie. So we know that the completed self assessment needs to be published. So my next question then is how should a landlord publish its self assessment?

Danielle Cook

So ideally, Leonard should publish their self assessments on the dedicated complaints page on the website. So it's really easy to find. So we have seen some instances of and policies or self assessments being buried really deep in the website. And we'd really encourage channels to avoid this because it's not very open or transparent. We really want it to be easy to find. So the self assessment is part of the annual Complaints Performance and Service Improvement Report. However, landlords can publish it separately on their website. Landlords that don't have a website could consider circulating hard copies with their newsletters or putting on notice boards, for example, in communal areas. Some landlords have also told us about plans to hold like town hall type events to discuss this with their residents. So the approach will vary from landlord to landlord, but it should reflect the needs of its residents.

Jaimie Strong

And I think just in addition to that, then the self assessment should use plain English, avoid jargon, making sure any of the web links are included in there are working where the landlord is referring to the complaints policy as evidence of compliance, it should refer to that. A particular subsection in the policy that relates to.

Jaimie Strong

It's really important that landlords remember that the purpose of the self assessment is to demonstrate not only to themselves and the Ombudsman that they're compliant, but to be open and transparent to residents about their approach. The government bodies response should also be published on the website and be easy to find as this is the governing bodies confirmation that they consider the self assessment to be true and accurate.

Anthea Chilton

Thank you very much. Earlier on, you touched on the Code webinars that we've been running for landlords. Thinking about these and some of the Code inquiries that the team has received, what are the most common issues or common questions that you're seeing about the new Code?

Danielle Cook

That's a really good question. I think we've had such a shift over the time in these types of questions that risk that we receive in. I think at the moment, the most common question is when will the submission form be available, which is really great. Is it, you know, indicates that a lot of landlords are ready to do their submission already. So the submission form was added to our website in early June and LAN was, should have received an email about this as well.

Danielle Cook

I think when if we go back to when the Code was first published, we did receive a lot of queries around service requests and differentiating these from compliance. I think simply put, we want them, you to recognize service requests as a request for a service. So this could be a request for a repair or a report that a repair didn't go ahead.

Danielle Cook

I think the main takeaway for landlords is that the Code allows for a resident and landlord choice in deciding whether a complaint or service request is appropriate in handling the matter. Alan should be asking the resident whether they would like to raise a complaint if they've expressed dissatisfaction and should retain the customer's preference in the forefront, front, forefront of its complaint handling processes.

Jaimie Strong

And then we've also received questions around the use of resident panels in the complaints procedure. So landlords can still use resident panels or involve residents in the complaints procedure. However, this must be part of the two stages and it must also comply with the time scale set out in the Code. And then we have received a fair amount of questions around the Annual Complaints Performance and Service Improvement Report. The Ombudsman isn't prescriptive on what the report should look like, just only sort of what the report must include, and that's set out in the Code. I'd say landlords know their residents, and they are best placed to create a report that reflects their residence, their operating model and the different arrangements for handling complaints. So it really is up to them what sort of format it takes. Landlords can find out more information about the report in our webinar recording and presentation online on the centre for learning.

Danielle Cook

But I think the discussions and questions that have been coming to us are, have really been helpful to us. I think we have managed to use it as an opportunity to develop more guidance and tools for the landlords. That's really risk you, you know, responding to what they're telling us. I think as an example, we received a lot of requests for training sessions with individual landlords about the new Code. And although we'd love to be able to do this for all landlords with 17 members, it would be really difficult to facilitate this. So instead, what we've been doing is running webinars, focusing on key areas of the Code where we've seen the most inquiries or where land was have asked for more support. So these are all available as well, as Jamie said, on our sense for learning and they can be rewatched at any time if anyone missed the session as well.

Jaimie Strong

Oh, and we've also developed an online e learning module that people can access to get an overview of the key requirements of the Code and also to check their knowledge on the Code. We know that this has been well received. And yeah, we'll continue to run more webinars and release more content as our work continues over the next year.

Anthea Chilton

Thank you. Sounds like we've had some really good questions coming in throughout our webinars and inquiries and things. That's really good. So that leads me to my final question today. What intervention work has the Ombudsman done as a result of the changes to the Code?

Jaimie Strong

So most of our work will come later this year after the landlords have completed their submissions. However, as we have mentioned earlier, we have s worked with a number of landlords that have required support in reaching compliance. And so we can tell you about a few of those examples, so one of them being like working with a landlord to update its policy from 20 working days to 10 working days at stage 1 to align with the Code time scales. This has reduced the time for a complaint to be resolved for residents living in over 11,000 households at that plan node manages.

Danielle Cook

Another example is one that we worked with to increase the accessibility of the complaint’s information on the landlords website, including how to make a complaint. So previously, the landlords were only accepting complaints in writing. So, we ask them to change their policy and clarify the process on the website, which they did. So, this will have benefited over 2,000 households as they're now more easily able to make a complaint if they need to.

Jaimie Strong

And we've worked with a landlord to improve the referral information to the housing ombudsman, so making it easier for residents to know where to take their complaint if it's not being resolved by the landlord. So, in that scenario, the landlord didn't have any referral information to the Housing Ombudsman in its complaint responses, in its template. So we helped resolve that.

Danielle Cook

I think one of the great benefits that we've seen so far of the work that we've been doing is, it gives us the opportunity to see some of the great approaches that landlords are taking when it comes to making the complaints process accessible and kind of handling complaints more effectively.

So, a great example of this, is a landlord who we initially contacted because of s concerns about digital exclusion and again, the accessibility of its complaint, poli complaints policy. So initially they were only accepting complaints via an online form. So, through this intervention, we were able to see the way that the land would use its knowledge of its residents to go beyond the formal requirements of the Code, to really tackle that potential for the digital exclusion. So not only did they amend their policy, like we asked to accept their complaints in more ways, what they also did was to produce posters to display in assisted living facilities as it wasn't aware that, you know, most of, or many of the residents living in these homes may not have the knowledge of facilities to raise a complaint online. So it might sound like a small thing, but it, you know, really shows how some landlords are looking at the Code as an opportunity to improve their services for residents. And this is a big landlord as well. So that seemingly little change affects over 31,000 households. So it's a really massive positive impact just from one land or making one little change.

Anthea Chilton

Lian, thank you both for sharing all of those examples as well. That's really interesting to hear sort of how that intervention works, been going on and the changes that have been made. So yeah, that's really good. Thank you. And that was my last question. So, Jamie and Danny, thank you so much for your time today and for answering all of my questions.

Anthea Chilton

I know that the centre for learning will be working lots more with you and with the rest of the team as well as we're going to continue developing lots of different learning tools and resources for the Code. And as you said, we've already created the e-learning module, which is available on the Learning Hub. And that's free for all of our member landlords. And we're continuing to develop further micro learn modules as well, and we'll be releasing those so that coming months.

Anthea Chilton

And I'm really looking forward to recording another podcast with the team later on in the year. And I think we're going to share further updates about what you've been so seeing through our duty to monitor work again. So, thank you both very much and see you soon.

Jaimie Strong

Thank you, Anthea. Thank you. Bye.