Foreword

The last two years have been a step change in how complaints are received, managed, and acted on. With an increase in the Housing Ombudsman’s duty to monitor complaints, the Social Housing Regulator’s new consumer standards and the introduction of the new tenant satisfaction measures survey, complaints have rightly received greater focus and scrutiny.  

The Housing Ombudsman introduced the role of “Member(s) Responsible for Complaints” (MRC’s) in 2022 to ensure that there are champions at a senior level in organisations driving a positive complaint handling culture, and supporting development of effective relationships between residents, staff, Boards and Committees. 

As the Members Responsible for Complaints at mhs homes and Heart of Medway Housing Association, we have a responsibility to oversee the complaints service, scrutinise our performance and set a great complaint handling culture from our positions on the Board and Executive Leadership Team.

We recognise there we need to improve some services and we are open and transparent sharing this with mhs homes Board Members and Heart of Medway Trustees as well as with you, our customers.  Complaints are highly valued, providing insight and driving priorities for service development. If we don’t know we’re getting something wrong, it’s harder to put right, so please keep sharing where we can get better. 

We are pleased to see the focus for the next year on improving front line services, such as time to complete repairs, improving time to answer calls, improving estates and management of anti-social behaviour.  We know these are the right priorities as they are driven by feedback and complaints we have received. We will regularly monitor progress to deliver these improvements, letting you know what we’re doing to improve throughout the year.

We’d love to hear your ideas to improve our services or the way we manage complaints if things do go wrong.  To find out more about getting involved, please email contactus@mhs.org.uk.

Amy Cheswick, Executive Director of Customer & Transformation  

Mark Miles Lea, Group Board and Heart of Medway Trustee