Passage Housing Services Complaints Procedure
Passage Housing Services (PHS) is a Registered Social Landlord overseeing 73 supported accommodation units in Westminster. We value the voice of those we work with and recognises the importance of learning through feedback and listening. We are committed to creating a culture of openness and transparency, creating a space where our residents feel safe and confident to tell us what is and isn’t working for them.
Sometimes we may get things wrong, we’re all human. If we don’t hear about it, we can’t learn from it and change things for the better. We welcome complaints as a chance to learn and improve our services to you as a resident of PHS.
If you raise an issue or make a complaint, this will in no way affect how we work with you, how we help you or your tenancy; unless it’s to make an improvement based off your feedback.
How to make a complaint
If you are unhappy or dissatisfied with how we have handled something you have 12 months within which to make a complaint. Let a member of staff know. You can do this verbally or in writing using The Passage’s complaints form, to be submitted via email (to [email protected] or the relevant Service Manager) or post. This will be recorded and passed to a Manager. If you would like to speak to a certain member of staff confidentially, that’s okay too!
If you feel you need some more support with any part of the process, you can ask for help from a member of staff. If you don’t feel comfortable asking staff, you are entitled to get someone to help you. This can be a family member, friend, another resident, or anyone you want to nominate.
What happens then?
The PHS Board welcomes complaints as a valuable insight to service provision and takes complaint handling very seriously. We have created a two stage procedure to ensure that the necessary investigations and actions are taken.
Stage 1
Once we have received your complaint it will become a stage 1 complaint. You will receive contact in writing within 5 working days by the manager who is looking into your complaint to let you know it has been received.
The manager will try to investigate and resolve your complaint within 10 working days and might want to speak with you as part of the investigation. They will then write to you and let you know of the outcome within 10 working days from the point of their letter letting you know they received your stage 1 complaint.
Unfortunately, sometimes delays happen. This could be due to waiting on information, or relevant people that need to be consulted being ill or on leave. However, they will always make sure to let you know of any delays by writing to you and letting you know why they need more time. They will also let you know how to contact the Housing Ombudsman if you
are unhappy with the delay.
They will not take more than 20 working days in total from the point of letting you know they received your stage 1 complaint to write to you with an outcome.
In their response to you, they will make clear how you can escalate your complaint further if you are not happy with the outcome. You don’t have to decide right away and can wait up to 3 months to decide to escalate your complaint to stage 2. After 3 months, more complaints on the same topic will only be accepted in serious circumstances.
Stage 2
If you don’t feel like your complaint has been resolved in stage 1, you can request that this is reviewed. This becomes a stage 2 complaint. Stage 2 of our complaint procedure is our final response. We will explain below what you can do if you want to escalate your complaint further after our final response.
The stage 2 complaint will be reviewed by a manager who was not involved with the stage 1 complaint. They will write to you within 5 working days of receiving your stage 2 complaint. They will then investigate your complaint and how it was handled and try to resolve it within 20 working days from the time they wrote to you to let you know they received your stage 2
complaint.
Unfortunately, sometimes delays happen. This could be due to waiting on information, or relevant people that need to be consulted being ill or on leave. However, they will always make sure to let you know of any delays by writing to you and letting you know why they need more time. They will also let you know how to contact the Housing Ombudsman if you are unhappy with the delay.
They will not take more than 40 working days in total from the time they wrote to you to let you know they received your stage 2 complaint to write to you with the final outcome. In their response to you, they will make clear how you can escalate your complaint further if you are not happy with the outcome.
Final actions
If you don’t feel that your stage 2 complaint was investigated properly, and you still aren’t happy with the outcome, you can complain to the Housing Ombudsman.
You don’t have to decide right away and can wait up to 12 months from receiving our final response to decide to escalate your complaint to the Housing Ombudsman. You can contact the Housing Ombudsman:
- Online: You can submit your complaint using the online complaint form.
- By phone: Call the Housing Ombudsman Service at 0300 111 3000 for assistance.
- By email: Send an email to [email protected] with details of your
complaint and any supporting documents. - By post: Write to Housing Ombudsman Service, PO Box 1484, Unit D, Preston, PR2 0ET
You will need to provide the Housing Ombudsman with certain information, so be prepared to provide:
- Details about your landlord (Passage House Services) and your tenancy.
- A copy of the complaint you made to your landlord.
- Copies of any responses you received.
- Any other relevant information about your complaint
If you need help with the process, the Housing Ombudsman offers support through their live chat service available on their website.
A message from our Board
We will continue to oversee complaint handling performance and ensure that lessons are learnt, and good practice adopted. We encourage a positive employee culture around complaints through welcoming complaints, learning from complaints, and resolving matters effectively for our residents where things have gone wrong.
There is room for improvement on how Passage Housing Services has handled complaints in the past year, and the Board will be closely overseeing these improvements and progress. Much work has been done over the past few months to ensure our Complaints Policy and procedures are fully compliant with the Housing Ombudsman’s Code and we have in place improved complaint handling procedures. The Board believe that PHS now has the right approach and systems in place to provide positive complaint resolution for our residents.