Making a complaint

1. Depending on the complaint, sometimes they do need investigating more thoroughly, and in this case it will be passed onto our Customer Resolution team who will then make contact with you and discuss your complaint and support you through the first stage of our process.
2. They will carry out an investigation with the information you have provided and keep you informed during the process. We will do this as quickly as we can and aim to make sure you have a decision and response within ten working days.*
   *sometimes due to unforeseen circumstances a complaint may take longer to investigate and in these circumstances we will let you know and keep you updated.
3. Once a decision has been made, we will contact you to discuss the outcome, which will also give you the opportunity to ask questions and understand the decision made. If you are not satisfied with the decision made, you are able to ask for the complaint to be looked at again in Stage 2 of our complaints process.

Our quarterly performance

2024/2025

• April – June
• January – March

Complaint Performance and Service Improvement Report 

• Appendix 1 – Complaint performance 
• Appendix 2 – Complaint demographics
• Appendix 3 – Investigation table  
• Appendix 4 – Housing Ombudsman self-assessment 
• Appendix 5 – Complaint Learning summary 

Housing Ombudsman self-assessment compliance report

Response from our Board

Ongo Homes’ compliance with the Complaint Handling Code and annual Complaint Performance and Service Improvement Report has been debated and scrutinised by our brand-new Customer Focus Committee. This is an important piece of work as it gives assurance to ourselves and our customers that we understand where we need to improve and how services are being delivered to our customers. As a board, we recognise that our complaint handling performance has not been where we, or our customers, would want it to be. We have made positive progress in 2024/25 and are committed to improving our service delivery and ensuring we are learning from our complaints and feedback.

Our quarterly oversight of complaints performance is an important opportunity for the board collectively to challenge the executive around complaints and how we are using customer feedback to drive service improvement.

This year, we saw some highlights within the report, such as improved complaint handling, which saw an increase from 93% to 97% of stage one complaints handled within the allocated timescale. This has been achieved by bolstering the team with a third Complaint Officer and changing the leadership focus to have a direct responsibility for complaints.

We also saw a reduction in complaints being escalated to stage two (with only 12% being escalated in comparison to the 29% the year previous).  This indicates that we are delivering resolutions for customers sooner and this has been supported by increased learning for the team and in using sector knowledge and Housing Ombudsman determinations to improve our responses.

As part of our board succession planning, we have appointed a new Member Responsible for Complaints. Our MRC is a member of our Customer Focus Committee and attends our tenant Complaint Panel. Our MRC has taken a keen interest in complaints performance and has consistently challenged the executive around how customer feedback has been used to improve services to customers. It was great to see our tenant Complaint Panel being involved in the annual complaint handling self-assessment and to see that their voices have led to changes throughout the year. They have made some significant changes to the way we handle complaints, including advising on improvements to our communications and responses, making suggestions for areas for further scrutiny and ensuring that we are considering tenant vulnerabilities within our complaint handling. This has all been achieved through making deep dive assessments on a sample of complaints. To strengthen the work and recognise the importance of the tenant Complaint Panel, the Member Responsible for complaints has been actively involved.

We are proactively responding to the Housing Ombudsman’s spotlight reports by conducting thorough self-assessments against the recommendations. Over the coming year, we will continue to strengthen this approach, with our Customer Focus Committee playing a key role in scrutinising and monitoring the resulting actions to ensure meaningful progress.

Alongside this we have also maintained robust oversight of all Housing Ombudsman determinations through our board and the Member Responsible for Complaints.  While we acknowledge that some past determinations have presented challenges and highlighted areas for improvement, this oversight enables us to continuously learn and evolve our approach. Our main focus remains on enhancing service delivery for our customers and reducing the likelihood of adverse determinations in the future.

While we recognise that there are positive improvements throughout the report, there’s also a need for continuous improvement.  Earlier this year, Ongo’s Board agreed a significant change in the way we deliver our services to our customers. The new Neighbourhood approach brings together the learning from complaints, tenant satisfaction feedback and customer engagement feedback. This new approach will bring significant change to the way we deliver services to our customers across Repairs, Tenancy Management and Customer Services.

We also recognise through our complaints feedback that our maintenance services have not consistently met expectations. In response, and alongside the regional restructuring, we have increased the size of our maintenance team by 25% through the addition of new operatives. Significant enhancements have also been made to our maintenance and property leadership structure, increasing our capacity to drive and sustain the improvements required. In parallel, we have reviewed and refined our repairs appointment systems and diagnostic tool to ensure a more efficient deployment of operatives.

The Board will be keeping a keen interest and will be monitoring the impacts of the changes and the outcomes for our customers. It has been assuring to see that customer feedback has led to large scale changes which we are confident will lead to improved services for all our customers soon.

As a Board, we would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has shared feedback with us throughout the year.  Your insights have been invaluable, and without them, we wouldn’t have been able to deliver the improvements we’ve made for now and for the future.

The Housing Ombudsman service is there throughout the lifetime of your complaint and if you feel you need further help and guidance on your complaint,

The Housing Ombudsman will support complaint resolutions between you and us and will formally investigate a complaint once you have completed our complaints process fully. We will co-operate fully with all requests from the Housing Ombudsman to support them in their findings and comply with the Housing Ombudsman Complaint Handling Code.

To contact them, see below

Address:
Housing Ombudsman Service
PO Box 1484
Unit D
Preston
PR2 0ET

Telephone:
0300 1113000

Email:
info@housing-ombudsman.org.uk

Online:
Online complaint form

In April 2024 the Complaint Handling Code, which sets out good practice to allow landlords to respond to complaints effectively and fairly, became a regulatory requirement. We are committed to ensuring we follow and comply with this code.

Our annual self-assessment against the code has been completed and reviewed by members of our Complaints Panel, and a copy of this can be found here. This will be submitted to the Housing Ombudsman.

The panel is made up of volunteers who focus on how Ongo handles complaints.

Their purpose is to drive change across the business and raise standards for tenants and customers who use the complaints service. The panel achieve this by quality-checking all aspects of complaint handling and performance, analysing and understanding themes for complaints, and spotlighting areas for further scrutiny.

Using example case studies, they identify themes and trends to assess whether procedures have been followed or require changing. In addition to this the panel provides their comments on the Housing Ombudsman Complaint Handling Code and monitors the self-assessment to ensure we are compliant when dealing with complaints.

The panel meetings take place for two/three hours every three months.

Click here to find out more and sign up.