South Norfolk Council annual complaints performance and service improvement report 2024/25

Introduction

This report provides information on the complaints received about the Council’s Housing Service which is responsible for the management and maintenance of the Council’s Temporary Accommodation stock between the 1 April 2024 and 31 March 2025. It excludes complaints which are submitted about other housing services provided by the Council. All complaints are dealt with in accordance with the Council’s Corporate Complaints and Compliments Policy.

Complaints

The council are happy to report that in the year 2024/25 we received zero complaints about the landlord service for owned properties. This exemplifies that the council’s continued investment in the temporary stock makes sure residents facing homelessness and needing accommodation are provided a safe space to stay and that there is a clear focus on providing effective management of the properties.

No complaints were refused to be accepted.

Annual Self-Assessment

Officers have completed a Self-Assessment for 2024-25 against the Housing Ombudsman Complaint Handling Code.

This ensures the Council align our policies and practices to provide a prompt and effective complaints service.

The council are continually seeking to improve our performance and our monitoring of compliance with the Complaint Handling Code and this is another important tool to ensure that we are doing so.

Learning and Service Improvement

The drive behind the requirement from the Housing Ombudsman to produce this report is to make sure complaints are robustly dealt with whilst also making sure any issues found are addressed and that landlords learn from complaints to improve service delivery. Unfortunately, due to the lack of complaints the council are unable to fulfil this obligation.

The Housing team continue to work hard to maintain a high-quality service, for example by seeking to improve rent arrears collection by ensuring a fair and consistent approach which also takes into account known personal circumstances when pursuing a debt after a tenancy has ended. We are reviewing our aged debt recovery processes to work in partnership with our Help Hub so that debt advice can be used as a tool to make this process more compatible with customers circumstances.

Housing Ombudsman Complaint Investigations

The Housing Ombudsman considers complaints about the services provided by Registered Providers where the resident remains unsatisfied with the service despite the complaint being considered through the landlord’s complaint process.

Each year, the Housing Ombudsman produces reports on landlords which have five or more findings against them following a Housing Ombudsman investigation. There are no landlord reports for the Council and no cases in 2024/5 were considered by the Housing Ombudsman.

Governing bodies response

Cabinet considered both the self-assessment against the Housing Ombudsman Complaint Handling Code and Annual Complaint Performance and Service Improvement Report on 16 June 2025. As South Norfolk Council’s Member Responsible for Complaints (MRC) and Portfolio Holder for Communities, I confirm that I have reviewed the Council's self-assessment and I am satisfied with the robustness of the self-assessment. The Annual Complaint Performance and Service Improvement Report shows that during 2024/5 there were no complaints made about the service provided to residents in the homes owned by the council, these properties are used as temporary accommodation and I am also satisfied that should a complaint have been made it would have been dealt with in a proactive and positive way ensuring that when complaints are upheld, they are used to identify learning which can lead to service improvements.