Our complaints process

We are sorry when things go wrong, and we want to hear from you if you are unhappy with us in any way.

We take all complaints seriously and record a learning outcome from every complaint made to Selwood Housing, to help us improve our services. You can read our latest compliments and complaints report here.

What counts as a complaint?

A complaint can be made when we’ve:
▪ Failed to provide a service when agreed.
▪ Provided a poor standard of service.
▪ Made a mistake in the way we’ve provided the service.
▪ Failed to meet our existing service standards.
▪ Failed to follow our policies correctly.

We will accept complaints when referred to us within 12 months of the issue occurring, or the individual becoming aware of the issue.

There are some circumstances when we won’t accept a complaint. This might be because the issue is better dealt with under one of our other policies such as our anti-social behaviour policy. Complaints about a member of staff will be dealt with by their line manager. Complaints about policies will be dealt with by the policy owner. Complaints about our financial services are considered regulated complaints, and must be dealt with in a particular way.

Find out more in our complaints and compliments policy here.

Stages of the complaints process

Stage one

We will acknowledge a complaint within 5 working days of being received. The complaint will be assigned to a member of staff with the most relevant knowledge and expertise, usually a team manager. They will hold an investigation and issue a full response within 10 working days of the complaint being acknowledged.

If you are unhappy with the response you can request that the complaint be escalated to stage two.

Stage two

We will acknowledge the request within 5 working days of being received. We will ensure the matter is dealt with by a different person to stage one. We will issue a final response within 20 working days of the complaint being escalated.

If you are still dissatisfied with the outcome, you can escalate the matter to the Housing Ombudsman Service.

Completion

A complaint will be closed 28 days following our response or earlier if you have confirmed you are satisfied with the outcome.

Find out more in our complaints procedure here.

Housing Ombudsman

You can contact the Housing Ombudsman at any time while a complaint is going through the complaints process for advice and to help find a resolution. However, the Housing Ombudsman cannot make a formal decision on a case at this stage.

Once you've been through our complaints process, if you remain dissatisfied with our response you can ask the Housing Ombudsman Service to investigate how we dealt with the matter.

• Online complaint form: www.housing-ombudsman.org.uk/residents/make-a-complaint/
• Phone: 0300 111 3000
• Email: info@housing-ombudsman.org.uk
• Postal address: Housing Ombudsman Service, PO Box 152, Liverpool L33 7WQ

Read the Housing Ombudsman's Complaint Handling Code here.

Read our self-assessment against the code here.

Read our response to a maladministration finding here.

Contacting us

Complaints can be sent from any source. This includes letters, emails, telephone, face-to-face conversations, satisfaction surveys, Facebook or other social media.

Find out how to contact us here.

Visit the government's 'Make things right' website here.