Board response to the Service Improvement Report
mhs homes group Board and Heart of Medway trustees are committed to improving the way mhs homes and Heart of Medway Housing Association manage complaints. We agree this report is a fair reflection of the service over the last year and we are encouraged by the improvements already made, including a 32% increase in complaints responded on time compared with 2022- 23.
We are pleased to see the increased focus on performance, learning from complaints and using feedback to drive improvements. The adoption of the Housing Ombudsman Service remedy guidance during the last year ensures that mhs homes and Heart of Medway are offering compensation and other outcomes clearly and fairly. We are pleased to see that the focus on complaints has led to more staff training and increasing the number of complaint handlers to make sure customers get a speedy response.
Reporting and customer feedback have increased, ensuring that mhs homes Board and Heart of Medway trustees can scrutinise and challenge performance, holding the executive team to account for services. In the next year, the customer scrutiny panel will also review the complaint service, giving independent feedback and challenge and driving focus on the most important areas for improvement.
The Board and Trustees have listened to customers and reviewed performance data, and we recognise the areas where mhs homes needs to improve. We are pleased to see the focus on improving services to reduce complaints going forward.
Front line services are being restructured to focus on getting repairs completed more quickly and we are increasing resources in the contact team as we know it has been harder to get through on the phone. We have plans to tackle damp and mould and we are reintroducing specialist housing management services, so you have dedicated contacts for complex issues like anti-social behaviour.
With this foundation in place, the focus for the next year will be on:
- Increasing satisfaction with the way we deal with complaints
- Resolving more anti-social behaviour cases and increasing satisfaction with the way we manage them
- Making improvements to estates
- Reducing the time to complete repairs
- Meeting new legislation (Awaab’s law) to resolve damp and mould cases quickly
- Increasing satisfaction that we listen to customers and act on the feedback
- Understanding customer issues through the collection of tenant satisfaction measure surveys and the value of the data for service improvements
For Heart of Medway trustees, the strong emphasis on quality assurance, understanding the differences in experience for their customers and the planned customer scrutiny panel review of complaint handling will be key.
As Board members and trustees, we will regularly monitor delivery of planned improvements and the outcomes for customers to ensure they are delivered. We also want to hear what you, our customers think of the way mhs homes and Heart of Medway puts things right if they go wrong. To find out more about getting involved, please email contactus@mhs.org.uk.