Barnsbury Housing Association

Complaints

To make a complaint about the service you have received from Barnsbury Housing Association please visit our Compliments & Complaints page or click here to contact us.

Our complaints handling

BHA complies with the Housing Ombudsman handling code. It means we and other landlords have to send in a self-assessment form to the Housing Ombudsman once a year.

We have also had to make some small changes to our policy. This is a shorter version written in plain language. An updated version of our easy-to-read guide will be sent to you with your summer newsletter in mid-July.

You can also download a copy of the full complaints policy here: BHA complaints policy [Updated June 2024]

 

Complaints policy

Our policy sets out in detail how we go about resolving quickly and fairly any complaints about our services, or respond to a request that we put right a service we mishandled or failed to provide as expected.

Our aim in both cases is to put matters right to your satisfaction as quickly as possible. Complaints and service requests both give us useful feedback for reviewing and improving our services.

Our policy complies with the Housing Ombudsman’s handling code and the Regulator for Social Housing’s (RoSH) consumer standards.

How the policy works

If you feel a service you have had from us or someone acting on our behalf was below an acceptable standard you can make a formal complaint or service request.

You can also do this if we didn’t do something we said we would, we gave out information that was wrong, failed to follow our own agreed procedures or communicated with someone in an inappropriate way.

Our policy is a general guide. We reserve the right to use our own discretion so if a situation demands we may treat a complaint differently. At all times we will be guided by what is fair and appropriate and will explain this at the earliest opportunity to the person wanting a problem to be put right. All complaints will be taken as far as possible to reach an acceptable solution.

If we do not accept your complaint we will tell you so in writing, giving our reasons. We will also give you the Housing Ombudsman’s details so you can, if you want, take the matter to them. They can overrule our decision

Scope

Our policy applies to anyone who lives in a BHA home and/or gets a service from us. It covers all actions by our employees, including board members, contractors, subcontractors, agents and volunteers.

It does not apply to anyone applying to us for housing unless it is about the way we managed their application.

Law, regulations, guidance and best practice

Our regulator requires of us that our policy is clear, simple and accessible.

Our policy takes in key elements of these laws, legal statutes and regulations:

  • Housing Ombudsman Service complaint handling code
  • The transparency, influence and accountability standard
  • Localism Act 2011
  • General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) 2018
  • Equality Act 2010
  • RoSH Consumer Standards
  • RoSH tenant satisfaction measures

Roles and responsibilities

You can make a complaint or service request to any of our staff. All BHA staff have a duty to take a complaint when made and will record it appropriately.

Complaints about our chief executive should be directed to the board chair or chair of our audit, finance and risk committee.

The designated complaints handler is our housing and communities director. They assess complaints, look for trends or issues with our systems and for risks – all signs of where we might need to intervene or revise a service or policy.

Our business support officer is responsible for overseeing how our complaints process is handled. All our staff get refresher training yearly in how to handle complaints.

Complaints are also reported to our board, which monitors our performance and compliance with the Housing Ombudsman’s handling code requirements.

The resident panel is also responsible for scrutinising complaints statistics and trends.

One of our board members, Kenny Johnson, is our Member Responsible for Complaints (MRC), ensuring we comply with all relevant laws and regulations and overseeing complaints handling performance. He has the important role of making sure our approach to complaints handling is positive. He meets regularly with the complaints handler to get updates. You can find the Board response to the HO’s handling code here.

We publish in the BHA annual report the outcome of complaints made over the past year and the lessons we have learnt from each. We regularly publish information on how to make a complaint or service request on this website and in your newsletter.

Principles

We apply our complaints policy fairly and objectively and will not discriminate against anyone based on any protected characteristic under the Equality Act 2010.

During the complaints process, we aim to:

  • Apologise and take responsibility where we have failed
  • Act quickly to identify the problem and take action to put it right
  • Take a fair and consistent approach to resolving complaints
  • Reconsider a decision already made
  • Change our records where needed
  • Provide information in formats you can use easily
  • Keep you informed throughout the complaints process, giving reasonable schedules, explaining ourselves quickly and clearly and managing your expectations fairly
  • Listen to you, treat you with respect and get you the right outcome
  • Pay a financial remedy if appropriate
  • Change policies and procedures where needed
  • Make reasonable adjustments to our approach for the complainant if needed.

We welcome feedback about our service and see complaints as a way for all the team to learn from what we do right and where our service needs improving. We record all feedback and review complaints and service requests regularly at leadership team meetings.

What is a complaint?

We use the Housing Ombudsman’s definition:

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

A service request is different, being a request from you that we provide a service or fix a problem you have reported. This could be, for example, sending someone out to do a repair you had reported to us but no one turned up at the appointed time.

What both have in common is that we must record the complaint or service request and regularly monitor and review the action we take.

What makes for a complaint? You do not need to use the word ‘complaint’ but we do need to understand you are dissatisfied. If we get a complaint or a service request from you we might ask you to make some points clearer for us.

Our policy covers instances: 

  • Dissatisfaction with any aspect of our service
  • Dissatisfaction with the standard of service given by our staff or someone for us. This includes their professionalism and conduct.
  • Where we have failed to follow our policies and procedures
  • Dissatisfaction with our response to a service request

We will not accept complaints if: 

  • You are making a stage one complaint more than 12 months after the matter came to your attention unless it is an exceptional case, for example you were incapacitated due to ill health or your complaint was not recorded when it should have been, but also in some cases of safeguarding or health and safety
  • It is about another of our residents. We have other ways to deal with the sensitive matter of differences between neighbours. If your complaint is about antisocial behaviour we will follow our antisocial behaviour (ASB) policy instead unless you are complaining about how we handled an ASB case
  • We have already dealt with this as a complaint
  • You refuse to engage with us in a reasonable manner
  • You or we have begun legal proceedings relating to the complaint. If we get legal instruction or correspondence while we are handling a complaint we reserve the right to hand over the case to our legal representative and to write to tell you the complaint is closed.
  • It is your first request for this service, eg a repair, in which case we will treat it as a service request
  • It is a claim for damages, which should be handled as an insurance claim
  • It is about the action of an individual or organisation we have no control over.

We accept each complaint on its own merit.

If we do not accept your complaint we will explain this to you and you will get a letter from us confirming it. If you want to appeal against our decision we will tell you how to contact the Housing Ombudsman service, which could overturn our decision.

Making a complaint

If you have had a service from us or from someone acting on our behalf and you are dissatisfed with that service you can make a complaint.

If a group of you wish to make a collective complaint, or to make a complaint in the form of a petition, you should do this through a single representative. We will need written authorisation from all complainants to make sure you agree to the complaint and agree to this person complaining on your behalf.

A representative or advocate can make a complaint on your behalf. They must get your signed authority, so a letter you have signed stating that you agree to this. This other person could be a friend, relative or a representative of an outside organisation such as a Citizens Advice Bureau or MIND. MPs and councillors can also act on your behalf. A representative can also sit with you at all meetings or talks with us at any stage of the complaints process.

You can make a complaint by any means, including talking to one of our staff, making a phone call, by email, letter or a translation service or using our website.

Contact details below:

Email:     info@barnsbury.org

Phone:    020 7704 2324

Address: Barnsbury Housing Association,

4-6 Colebrooke Place,

London,

N1 8HZ

Website: barnsbury.org

If you contact us using one of our public social media pages, we will ask you to contact us directly to protect your privacy. If you make a complaint anonymously, we may still investigate the matter.

You can contact the Housing Ombudsman service for advice at any point throughout your complaint.

If you need support to make a complaint, we will provide it where possible (with your permission), including encouraging you to use a representative or advocate as appropriate.

We will make any reasonable adjustments to the complaints policy and procedure to meet your needs as covered by our reasonable adjustments policy.

The person handling your complaint must:

  • Deal with your complaint on its merits
  • Deal with your complaint quickly and fairly
  • Act independently and keep an open mind
  • Take measures to address any perceived or actual conflicts of interest
  • Consider all information and evidence carefully
  • Ask you to clarify if your complaint is not clear
  • Keep your complaint confidential as far as is possible
  • Be open and transparent throughout
  • Discuss with you and agree any conflict of interests
  • Assess your complaint and act quickly on all points we can resolve easily
  • Assess potential risks to you if you have vulnerabilities.

The complaints process

If you make a complaint to any of our staff, they will tell our business support officer and their manager about the complaint.

Any correspondence relating to this complaint will be logged alongside the initial complaint to be used as background information for our investigation.

BHA’s business support officer will be responsible for overseeing our complaints administration and will be copied into any correspondence about the complaint.

Our housing and communities director is the complaints handler. They have access to all our staff and the authority and autonomy to get complaints resolved in a fair, consistent and timely way.

Complaints will be handled in keeping with best practice approved by the Housing Ombudsman.

Making a service request

When any of you tell us you are not happy about a service or other action we have done or are doing, we will consider whether it is something we can put right quickly, without your having to go through our formal complaints procedure.

This will be classed as a service request.

Examples can include: 

  • Sorting out an issue about a repair or an appointment
  • Making clearer information we have already given you
  • Being clearer about how we apply our policies or procedures
  • Apologising for missing a repair appointment
  • Paying compensation.

Issues we might consider not suitable for a service request could include:

  • A situation where multiple issues have to be resolved.
  • Unhappiness about the behaviour or attitude of a member of staff or contractor.

If you would rather we dealt with your issue as a formal complaint straight away, we will log it as a stage one complaint and stop acting on it as a service request.

You also have the right to escalate a service request to to a stage one complaint if you are not happy with the outcome.

You can go to the Housing Ombudsman about your service request, or complaint, at any stage.

Stage one complaint

Any complaint we get at stage one will first be dealt with by the complaint handler. They will work out how complex the case is and will make sure any vulnerabilities you have are taken into account before deciding what priority your complaint will get.

Within five working days we will send you written acknowledgment that we have your complaint and are starting our investigation. We will tell you the name of the middle manager investigating your complaint and our deadline for getting a formal response to your complaint.

We may contact you to discuss the complaint, to clarify responsibilities for various aspects of your complaint and to better understand the issue and the outcome you want.

If the nature of your complaint means we need to meet you, at home or in our office, you have the right to make sure someone is with you at the time or to have someone else represent and speak for you.

We will manage expectations from the outset, being clear about the outcome you want and whether or not this is reasonable or realistic.

Within 10 working days of your making your complaint you will get a full response from us. If for any reason we are not able to give you a full response by then we will keep you updated and will tell you when you can expect our full response.

If we need more time to complete our investigation, we will discuss this with you and may extend our response time by another 10 working days.

We will also remind you at this stage of your right to contact the Housing Ombudsman and give its contact details.

If you raise more complaints during our investigation we will add these to our stage one response if they are related and we have not already sent you a decision on your stage one complaint.

If the new issues are not related to the issues being investigated or would unreasonably slow down our response, we will log them as a new complaint (or complaints).

If we have carried out or identified any actions to resolve your complaint we will send details in our response to you. Where useful we will also explain relevant laws and good practice.

When we tell you if your complaint is not upheld, is partially upheld or is upheld we will give clear reasons for our decision, tell you the remedies we are using or will use to put things right, other proposed actions and our timeline. We will also tell you how to escalate your complaint to stage two if you are still not satisfied.

We will also remind you f your right at this stage to contact the Housing Ombudsman, along with contact details.

We will log the letter giving our response letter on our systems, to be kept as part of our formal complaints process.

If you are not satisfied with our response you must tell us within 28 working days of getting it. If you don’t tell us within 28 working days we will consider the complaint resolved. We will only extend this in exceptional circumstances.

Stage two complaint

If you are not satisfied with our stage one response, we will escalate your complaint to a senior manager (either the chief executive, housing and communities director or asset manager) to review as a stage two complaint.

None of these staff will have been involved in the stage one complaint process.

The business support officer will send you formal acknowledgment that your complaint is now a stage two complaint within five working days.

You will be told this is the last stage of our complaints process.

You do not have to explain why you want your complaint to go to stage two. However we are expected to make reasonable efforts to understand why you are still dissatisfied,

We will likely get in touch with you to discuss your complaint. Our senior manager will want to be clear who is responsible for any different aspects of your complaint. They will also want to make sure they understand the problem and the outcome you want.

If we need to meet you, at home or elsewhere, you have the right to have another person with you and/or to have them speak on your behalf, with your consent.

If during the senior manager’s investigation we find that to resolve your complaint more action is needed on our part or some matters are more complex than expected we might ask you to give us more time. This will not take more than 20 working days. We will explain this to you clearly, also giving the reasons.

Within 20 days of your telling us you wanted your complaint to go to stage two you will be told if your complaint has been upheld, partly upheld or not upheld. You will get clear reasons for our decision and, if fully or partly upheld, what we will do to put matters right and how long it will take.

You will get a full response in writing from the senior manager detailing the outcome of your stage two complaint.

If we have decided no further action is needed, and all reasonable and appropriate measures have been taken, you will be told you have reached the end of our complaints process and the next steps available to you.

Our final response will be logged onto our systems and kept as a record of the complaints process.

If you are not satisfied with our stage two response you can take this up with the Housing Ombudsman service.

Housing Ombudsman

At any stage of the complaints process you have the right to contact the Housing Ombudsman service. This includes the time it takes us to investigate your complaint. The ombudsman will usually only start its own investigation once our complaints process has been exhausted.

Housing Ombudsman Service,  

PO Box 1484, Preston,  

PR2 0ET 

Tel: 0300 111 3000 

info@housing-ombudsman.org.uk; www.housing-ombudsman.org.uk 

We will make every effort to co-operate with any investigation into your complaint by the Housing Ombudsman service.

Complaints handling code

The Housing Ombudsman’s complaints handling code sets out the procedures we need to follow for all complaints.

This quote below provides you with our 2023 confirmation of compliance with the Housing Ombudsman Handling Code. Each year after being assessed, BHA will display the confirmation from the Housing Ombudsmen as an added assurance of compliance:

Thank you for your email, and for updating your policies and website. I am now satisfied that you have made the necessary changes to align your policy with the code. Please update your website accordingly. I will now close your file. Thank you again for your cooperation.

– Compliance and Systemic Lead, Housing Ombudsman

If your complaint is taken up by the Housing Ombudsman for a formal investigation it might ask to review our policy and processes to meet its handling code. We will comply with this review.

If we undergo a major restructure or make a change to our complaints policy we must review the handling code.

If in your case we aren’t able to comply with their handling code because of exceptional circumstances we will tell all parties affected, giving a new timescale.

Annual Complaints Performance Report

On May 16th 2024, BHA’s Board of Management were provided a report on the 2023/24 performance on complaints. It is a requirement that BHA publishes its annual complaints performance.

Unreasonable behaviour

We may have cases where we have solid grounds for believing someone wanting to lodge a complaint is being unreasonable. We have a separate, unacceptable behaviour policy for this sort of situation. Our policy is proportionate and demonstrates our regard for the provisions of the Equality Act 2010. 

In short, behaviour we think unreasonable includes: 

  • A strong likelihood of a complaint being made to harass staff, use up our resources (staff time or our funds) or disrupt our work
  • A history of making persistent or unreasonable demands
  • Evidence of abusive or threatening behaviour to staff or sending far too much correspondence (letters, email, messages etc)
  • The complainer or their representative clearly behaving unreasonably
  • Repeated complaints, with no new information, about matters that have already gone through our complaints process
  • Far too much contact with our staff while a complaint is being investigated.
  • Intimidating, threatening, or offensive or abusive language towards, or about, our staff or contractors
  • Contacting staff outside work, including through their personal social media accounts.

In the above situations, while we carry on doing our best to resolve the reason for the complaint, we may:

  • Communicate with the resident through a third party
  • Limit their contact to a named member of staff or email address
  • Limit the way they can communicate with us to one specific type, eg email
  • Limit when they can contact us to particular dates and times.

If the unreasonable behaviour carries on we may stop all direct communication while we investigate the issues raised and reach our final decision.

We may also do this if unreasonable behaviour carries on after our final decision. If we stop direct communication we will explain why in writing within five working days and will set out the next steps.

Learning from feedback

Our complaints policy is an important tool for improving our services. Your feedback helps us learn and improve. We regularly report your compliments, cases of complaints and our service performance statistics (known as key performance indicators) to our board and resident panel.

By regularly monitoring our leadership team is able to pick up any emerging themes and see your feedback and lessons learnt.

We regularly report lessons learnt and how we resolved a complaint to our board and residents panel. We also report these in our annual report to you.

Our housing and communities director is responsible for the annual review of our complaints policy, making sure it complies fully with the Housing Ombudsman’s handling code.

Our staff regularly review complaints to identify any issues with our service.

After we close a complaint we send you a survey form asking you to rate your satisfaction with how we handled it.

If in any survey you complain about a service we will not define this as a complaint but you will be contacted separately and given information on how to make a complaint. We publish our complaints process and how we keep to the Housing Ombudsman’s complaints handling code:

  • In our newsletters
  • On our website
  • During new tenant sign-ups
  • In new tenant sign-up packs
  • In surveys
  • In our booklets and advice leaflets
  • In our easy-to-read complaints guide

In line with the Housing Ombudsman handling code, please see our 2023/24 Annual Report that demonstrates that we comply with all the Housing Ombudsman’s annual handling code reviews.

Data protection and GDPR

We process and store personal information and data in line with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) 2018. All complaints will be dealt with in line with our GDPR-related policies.

Any third parties representing a resident during the complaints process will be asked to provide a letter from the resident authorising them to act on their behalf. Where there is no evidence to prove that they have been authorised to represent our resident in this way, we will ask for any other evidence to prove the complainant is happy to be represented by this third party.