Introduction

Welcome to mhs homes Group first annual complaint service improvement report. As a member of the Housing Ombudsman scheme, we must report on our improvements arising from complaints over the last financial year.  This report covers both mhs homes and Heart of Medway Housing Association.  mhs homes is a housing charity, regulated by the charity commission and Heart of Medway is a registered social housing provider, regulated by the regulator of social housing.

We unveiled our new values in April 2024, which are PRIDE (Pride, Respect, Inclusion, Driven and Empathy). We aim to improve lives by providing you with customer focused services that leave you confident we listen and take action to put things right. We value and recognise each complaint as an opportunity to learn and improve.  

This report reviews our performance managing complaints over the last year and sets out our areas of focus for the next year. We share complaint trends and provide comparison with other landlords. We also share some improvements and changes following complaints, as well as developments in the way we manage complaints.  

The Housing Ombudsman Service provides landlords with Spotlight Reports that provide a deep dive into key issues they see arising from complaints, which we also consider as we seek continuous improvement.  

Recent mhs homes and Heart of Medway Housing association determinations from Housing Ombudsman investigations relate to cases that were first raised with us between 2021 and 2022.  Whilst there have been significant improvements in the complaints service since that time, the findings show that we still have work to do to improve complaint handling. This report also shares the changes we have made following these independent investigations.

We are excited about the planned changes for 2024-25. With a strong focus on improving front line services, combined with improving the way we record and report complaints, we will be able to analyse complaints data in much more detail, using this insight to drive decision making.  We also have ambitious goals to increase customer engagement, with more opportunities for customers to have a say and influence priorities and services.