Complaints

Effective complaint handling should be a customer friendly process that enables residents to be heard, listened to and understood.

The starting point for this is a mutual understanding of what constitutes a complaint.

The resident does not have to use the word 'complaint' for it to be treated as such.  We should recognise the difference between a service request, survey feedback and a formal complaint and take appropriate steps to resolve the issue for residents as early as possible.

A complaint is also able to be submitted via a third party or representative and will still be handled in line with this Policy.

We classify each complaint we receive under one of the two stages of complaint:

'Stage One' formal complaint

'Stage Two' formal complaint

The Housing Ombudsman defines a complaint as 'an expression of dissatisfaction, however made, about the standard of service, actions, or lack of action by the organisation, its own staff, or those acting on its behalf, affecting an individual resident or a group of residents.' South Essex Homes recognises this definition and adopts it for this policy.

 

Exclusions

South Essex Homes will accept a complaint unless there is a valid reason not to do so, for example.

• The issue giving rise to the complaint occurred over six months ago. Where the problem is a recurring issue, the landlord should consider any older reports as part of the background to the complaint if this will help to resolve the issue for the resident. There may be situations where we would accept a complaint where the issue occurred over six months ago, e.g. where complaints concern safeguarding or health and safety issues.
• Legal proceedings have been started. We will not look at a complaint where you have ongoing court proceedings or have already had a decision from the court about the same issues which you would like us to investigate.
• Matters that have already been considered under the complaints policy.
• The complaint is being pursued in an unreasonable manner.

If South Essex Homes decides not to accept a complaint, a detailed explanation should be provided to the resident setting out the reasons why the matter is not suitable for the complaints process and the residents right to take this decision to the Housing Ombudsman.

South Essex Homes is committed to always providing its customers with a high standard of service. However, we accept that there may be occasions when you are not satisfied with the service which you have received and as a result you may wish to make a complaint.

We try to make it easy for our customers to make a complaint and accept complaints in most formats and from a variety of sources, including email, our online feedback form, letter, telephone, text or message via Facebook.

All complaints will be dealt with promptly and in a professional manner by appropriate member(s) of staff. Confidentiality will be preserved as far as is possible.

Complaints relating to nuisance or harassment by neighbours will be dealt with separately, under the Anti-Social Behaviour Policy.

Logging complaints

All complaints will be registered, logged and investigated by our Corporate Complaints Team as set out in our Complaints Policy.  The team will decide which service area your complaint relates to and will liaise with members of that team as part of their investigation into your complaint.  We aim to provide a full response to your complaint within 10 working days.

The Corporate Complaints Team will log all complaints on our Complaints Database and save a copy of the complaint and our response on to Civica (the application that we use to save documents electronically). This team will monitor all complaints and ensure that a reply is sent out to you within the agreed timescale.  The team will also monitor any follow up actions that have been identified during the investigation.

Monitoring Our Performance

The Complaint Handling Code - Housing Ombudsman (housing-ombudsman.org.uk) sets out good practice that helps us respond to complaints effectively and fairly.  Our annual self assessment completed in line with the Housing Ombudsman Code along with our Annual Complaints Report prepared for the South Essex Homes Board on 4 November 2025 and the South Essex Homes Board statement relating to complaints can be found below: 

• HO Self Assessment[pdf] 253KB
• Annual Complaints and Service Improvement Report 2026.pdf [pdf] 308KB

 

 

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Complaints Statement of South Essex Homes' Board 

“The Board of SEH has formally received, scrutinised, and challenged the Annual Complaints and Service Improvement Report for 2025/26, alongside the updated self-assessment against the Housing Ombudsman’s (HO) Complaint Handling Code. We wish to assure all residents that the Board is satisfied that this self-assessment is a true, accurate, and transparent reflection of the organisation's current complaint handling performance.

The Board acknowledges the serious and unacceptable service failures detailed within this report, particularly regarding extreme delays in responsive repairs, poor third-party contractor performance, and historic weaknesses in data management. We fully accept the performance data that has led to the Regulator of Social Housing's C3 grading and the HO’s systemic Level 1 Paragraph 49 investigation.

In reviewing this report, the Board has rigorously challenged the Executive Management Team on how the critical risks identified, specifically concerning legal non-compliance, Knowledge and Information Management (KIM) failures, and contractor oversight, are being addressed. We have sought and received assurance that the proposed mitigation strategies, including the roll-out of the Data Management Plan and the strict enforcement of the 'Reasonable Adjustments' register, are robust enough to address these systemic vulnerabilities.

Furthermore, the Board fully endorses the newly formulated Complaints Action Plan for 2026/27. We will actively monitor the implementation of 'Right First Time' financial incentives for contractors and the new complex case management protocols to ensure they translate into tangible improvements in resident outcomes. The Board remains committed to working transparently with both our residents and the HO to restore the high quality of service our communities expect and deserve.”

Agreed by the Board 16/7/26

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Details of the number of complaints we receive and compliance with our performance indicators are reported as part of our year end performance information.  Wherever possible we will learn from the complaints we receive, and, in each case, we will identify where a lesson or amendment to a service has been identified to improve how we do things. We will record these lessons learned and report them to our Executive Management Team.

As part of the monthly performance monitoring, the Executive Management Team will receive updates on Complaint stages and performance against complaints responded to in target time. The Board will receive information on complaints performance annually.

We ensure that we benchmark against our peers to learn from other organisations within the housing sector on how they provide their service.

Our Contractors

South Essex Homes ensures that it monitors the complaints about our contractors. Each contractor will be expected to have a Complaints Policy comparable to the Policy of South Essex Homes. In particular, complaints about the service provided by our larger contractors will be reviewed and discussed with individual contractors at client management meetings and reported to the Board on an exception basis.