Inspection, Complaints and the Implications for the Review of Regulation

Inspection, Complaints and the Implications for the Review of Regulation

Summary

This report considers the 20 most recent inspection reports, their star rating and the Audit Commission commentary on the landlord’s approach to complaints. It reveals that complaint handling is variable, and gets worse as the performance of the landlord is worse. This exposes concerns about the review of regulation and the emphasis to be put on tenants complaining. If the landlord processes for complaints are increasingly poor for weaker landlords then the tenants with the most legitimate concerns about their services will also get the poorest response for those concerns.

Background

Currently the Regulatory Framework contains a requirement that all social landlords should have “an approach to complaints that is clear, simple and accessible that ensures that complaints are dealt with promptly, politely and fairly” backed up by specific expectations including accepting complaints from advocates. This followed close working by a range of stakeholders including the respective Ombudsmen.

Grant Shapps has set out his emphasis that “where tenants are dissatisfied with the service they need to see things change”. The Terms of Reference for the TSA Review rightly outlines the need for “To review and establish a new policy and any necessary institutional arrangements (that exclude the TSA) for the handling of complaints from social tenants about the performance of their landlord (taking into account the role of tenant panels) that achieve greater levels of local accountability.”

In his most recent report the Independent Housing Ombudsman reported an increase of 42% in complaints – whilst an increase in complaints is not necessarily a sign of worsening performance it is a sign that tenants will use that route more and increase the importance in managing those complaints to result in the change advocated by the Minister.

The purpose of this report is not to comment on the merits or otherwise of the institutional arrangements for regulation. However the handling of complaints is clearly a fault line at present – the increased emphasis on it in the proposed approach makes resolution far more important.

Review

The most recent 20 inspections were considered:

- 9 Housing Associations - some of which were pre and some post the TSA’s emphasis on inspections to clarify concerns about performance

- 9 ALMOs – all to support their ALMO funding to achieve Decent Homes

- 2 Local Authorities, both of which were follow ups to previous (poor) inspections

The Housing Associations inspections are Short Notice Inspections which do not come in ‘star’ ratings. However this review makes reasonable connections between these and the other 11 inspections. This Review doesn’t give details of landlords although all can be found easily enough on the Audit Commission website.

Three Stars

Generally these are life affirming – excellent services, excellent prospects and well deserved given my knowledge of each of them. In broad terms these are about 50% compliant with a good complaints service. It’s reasonable to assume that given their prospects for improvement these landlords will now improve their complaints handling when identified.

Two Stars

These reflect the mixed approach to complaints above – about 50% complaint with a fairly sharp divide between those who do it well and those who do have some way to go. This is also reflected by one borderline one/two star HA and one improving one-star ALMO. This again emphasises the importance of regular reviews of complaints handling and the opportunity to improve.

One Star

Of the eight one- star landlords seven are uniformly poor at handling complaints. The comments include:

- Poorly managed

- Does not reflect good practice

- Not well managed

Three in particular are worth quoting in more length

“Does not actively encourage complaints. Only 16 were recorded in 2009. There is an emphasis on the need to make complaints in writing and basic recording systems mean that it is difficult to register verbal complaints, manage performance or to share information or learning across the organisation.

Performance and satisfaction monitoring with the management of complaints is weak. Neither senior managers nor Board members receive effective performance reports on complaints handling and satisfaction with handling is not recorded. The Board has not been involved in reviewing even serious complaints.

The complaints procedure has significant gaps. There is no requirement to acknowledge complaints, compensation arrangements are not transparent and there is no reference to how compliments are dealt with. “

“Customer complaints are not always responded to quickly, there is some learning from them, but this is not systematic and there are high levels of customer dissatisfaction with the way they have been handled.

The association’s approach to identifying and using learning from complaints, customer satisfaction, benchmarking and best practice in other organisations is underdeveloped.”

“Does not deal with tenant complaints effectively. Some replies are late and they do not always respond fully to the points raised. Does not have a robust approach to learning from complaints and does not advertise or always apply its own compensation policy. Does not resolve complaints promptly and fairly.”

Conclusion

The above reveals weaknesses in landlords handling of complaints. This raises three concerns:

1. the ability for all landlords to maintain effective handling of complaints

2. the ability for tenants, landlords and government to have confidence in complaints processes where landlord performance is at its weakest

3. how government, funders, tenants and landlords will be able to gauge the effectiveness of complaints handling in future without the ability to inspect

In terms of a way forward the current review of regulation will be well advised to take note of these findings. There can be no presumption that the current approach is as effective as it could be – the increased emphasis on complaints will require a step change in terms of current practice and clarity about what happens when this is not in place. This is especially true for poorly performing landlords and their tenants.

Landlord	Star rating or equivalent	Audit Commission commentary - extract
HA	3	It takes too long to deal with complaints and the way they are handled is not encouraging customers to complain. Customers are dissatisfied with the outcome of complaints and performance is considerably below the target set in the service standards.
ALMO	3	A comprehensive complaints system is well advertised and used effectively to improve services. Complaints are not all responded to quickly.
ALMO	3	Customer complaints are managed well.
ALMO	2	There is an effective approach to dealing with complaints.
ALMO	2	Performance in handling complaints was also weak. The approach to handling complaints has improved but retains weaknesses.
HA	2	Complaints are responded to promptly and are used to improve services.
HA	2	Customer complaints are taking a long time to resolve and is not measuring its performance against its target response times.
HA	2	Complaints are well managed
ALMO	2	Residents do not always get a response to problems on first contact and the response to complaints is weak; and the complaints system had some key weaknesses.
HA	1-2	The management of complaints is not fully effective. Published information does not make it clear how to proceed with a complaint and a recent survey showed that 69 per cent of tenants who made a complaint were dissatisfied.
ALMO	1+	The response to complaints is not always timely, though there are some positive examples of learning from complaints.
LA	1	Complaints handling is weak. Response target times are not met and only 26 per cent of service users are satisfied with the complaints process. Only 36 per cent are satisfied with the outcome.
ALMO	1	The approach to complaints is poorly managed and not all opportunities are used to gather and learn from feedback.
ALMO	1	Responses to complaints are slow, though they are answered well and are used to improve services.
LA	1	The complaints system does not reflect good practice, and the number of complaints is low. The procedure only has two stages and lacks a final review or appeal panel stage. Staff have not been trained on recognising and recording complaints. The complaints leaflet does not clearly set out the range of ways to make a complaint, what happens once the customer has made a complaint or the timescales for responses at each stage.
HA	1	The overall handling of complaints is not well managed. Performance on how quickly complaints are processed is not known, satisfaction levels are not monitored and is not consistently learning from complaints.
HA	1	Does not actively encourage complaints. Only 16 were recorded in 2009. There is an emphasis on the need to make complaints in writing and basic recording systems mean that it is difficult to register verbal complaints, manage performance or to share information or learning across the organisation. Performance and satisfaction monitoring with the management of complaints is weak. Neither senior managers nor Board members receive effective performance reports on complaints handling and satisfaction with handling is not recorded. The Board has not been involved in reviewing even serious complaints. The complaints procedure has significant gaps. There is no requirement to acknowledge complaints, compensation arrangements are not transparent and there is no reference to how compliments are dealt with.
HA	1	Customer complaints are not always responded to quickly, there is some learning from them, but this is not systematic and there are high levels of customer dissatisfaction with the way they have been handled. The association’s approach to identifying and using learning from complaints, customer satisfaction, benchmarking and best practice in other organisations is underdeveloped.
HA	1	Does not deal with tenant complaints effectively. Some replies are late and they do not always respond fully to the points raised. Does not have a robust approach to learning from complaints and does not advertise or always apply its own compensation policy. Does not resolve complaints promptly and fairly.