Complaints and Compliments

When can I make a complaint?

If you are dissatisfied with any service provided by us or one of our contractors, you can make a complaint by any of the ways detailed in the Complaints Guide. You can also use the Complaints Form. We will not normally consider a complaint that is made more than six months after you first became aware of the issue.

What is not a complaint?

A complaint is not a first request for a service, or a request for information or explanation of our policies or practices. A report of nuisance from a neighbour wouldn’t be dealt with through our complaints process. This is because we have a different procedure for dealing with neighbour disputes and anti-social behaviour.

What happens when I make a complaint?

We will always attempt to solve a complaint at the first point of contact, using our normal practices. There are times when our attempts to resolve complaints at this point are not possible and it is necessary to investigate these using our formal complaint process detailed:

Resolution

When we receive your complaint, we will call you within 2 working days and try and sort the problem out immediately if possible. If we can’t contact you by phone we will send you an acknowledgement of your complaint within 5 working days.  If your complaint needs further investigation, we will aim to do this within 10 working days.

Review

If you are not satisfied with the way we have resolved or dealt with your complaint you can ask for a review, giving the reason why you remain dissatisfied and the outcome you are looking for. Your review will be carried out by a Head of Service, usually within 20 working days.

Housing Ombudsman Service

If you are not satisfied with the outcome of your complaint at the end of our complaints process you can contact the Housing Ombudsman.

The Housing Ombudsman will usually only look at your complaint once it has been through all steps of our own complaint process.

For more information please visit the Ombudsman’s website: www.housing-ombudsman.org.uk

Useful documents:

Compliments and Complaints Guide

Complaints policy

We really appreciate your feedback and its always good to receive compliments to let us know we’re getting things right.  We use this to help us learn and improve.  You might be thinking:

When can I give a compliment ?
Anytime you want! compliments are very motivating for staff as well as allowing us to share good customer experiences across the business. Your comments and ideas help us improve further.

How can I give a compliment?

Please use the Compliments Form

From 2024, Bernicia must complete and publish a Complaints Performance and Service Improvement Report, including a self-assessment of compliance with the Housing Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code. 

 Avril Gibson, Deputy Board Chair, Chair of the Customer Services Committee and Member Responsible for Complaints, has made the following statement in response to the report:

 The 2023/24 Complaints Performance and Service Improvement Report, including a self-assessment of compliance with the Housing Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code was scrutinised, drafted, and concluded in consultation with the Tenant Voice Panel, and Customer Service Committee, each comprising tenant representatives, before being presented to the Bernicia Group Board.

This assures us that Bernicia is complying with the Complaint Handling Code and that the content of the report is a comprehensive and accurate reflection of the experiences of tenants, and the work of Bernicia.

During 2023/24 tenants were heavily involved in the review and revision of Bernicia’s Complaints Policy and Procedure, to ensure our approach to receiving and resolving complaints was effective and efficient. To monitor the success of that, complaint satisfaction surveys have been introduced.

In learning from complaints, and other feedback, we are also keen to understand the experiences of our diverse households and communities, to ensure our services are delivered and received equitably, to ensure a consistent, quality service is experienced by everyone. We will continue to refine our understanding of tenants, and their experiences over the forthcoming year.

Working in partnership, tenants, colleagues, and the Board are confident that complaints into Bernicia are considered seriously, with a focus on firstly resolving complaints and then learning from them, to identify any themes and improvements to service design and delivery.

Overall, it’s been a both a challenging and progressive year for us.  Performance indicators, customer satisfaction and complaints, highlighted unprecedented levels of repair and inspection requests, resulting in delays in meeting some repair timescales.  We therefore reflected on the way we diagnose and prioritise repairs, alongside agreeing additional resources and additional trade operatives to contend with the increasing volumes of work.  This is having a positive impact, with response times now improving.

We’ve also made great progress implementing our new Customer Relationship Management system, helping us better record and respond to tenant’s service requests, giving colleagues across the business access to robust and up to date information, helping maintain communication with tenants throughout their transactions with us.

This year saw the introduction of Tenant Satisfaction Measures, a suite of customer satisfaction indicators covering a range of services. It is extremely pleasing to see that overall satisfaction with Bernicia remains high, along with the confidence tenants have that their home is well maintained and safe to live in.  It is also good to learn that tenants feel they are treated fairly and with respect, and that their views are listened to and acted upon.

I trust the report gives readers a balanced view of Bernicia’s performance and the improvements we have made because of the valuable insight that complaints and other feedback generates for us.

If you wish to make a complaint, or want to know more about being involved in decision making at Bernicia, please contact our engagement team on 0344 800 3800 or customer.engagement@bernicia.com who will be happy to help.