Cabinet to endorse updated Complaints Policy

Next week, Cabinet members will endorse Berneslai Homes’ updated Complaints Policy which improves our service to tenants and reflects recent legal and regulatory changes.

The updated policy is in line with the Complaints Handling Code from the Housing Ombudsman Service which became statutory on 1 April 2024. The code aims to give a better service to tenants and achieve best practice in complaint handling. It tells housing providers to:

• Promote a universal definition of a ‘complaint’
• Make sure tenants have easy access to the complaints procedure
• Make sure tenants understand the stages and response times of the complaints procedure
• Make sure there’s a focus on taking action to put things right
• Learn and improve from complaints
• Share this learning with you

Berneslai Homes received accreditation from Housemark in 2023 for our complaint handling service and we’re committed to providing an excellent service to customers, hearing your feedback, and acting quickly when things are raised with us. We’ve consulted with tenants when updating our policy so we can be confident it meets your needs and our responsibilities.

Dave Fullen, Executive Director Customer and Estate Services, said: “Hearing customers means listening to and understanding the needs of tenants and the updated policy explains how we’ll do that. We want to hear from tenants to be able to put things right as soon as possible, and we’re committed to learning and improving when things don’t go quite as expected.”

The key changes are:

• The ‘Informal Stage’ of complaints has been removed so there are now just two stages
• The timescales for responding to complaints have been amended and are clearly set out in the policy
• We’ve improved the ways we’ll communicate with tenants and share our learning with you when things need to be put right

Under the updated policy, Barnsley Council’s Cabinet Spokesperson for Regeneration and Culture has lead responsibility for making sure that our complaint policy and the way we put this into practice are in keeping with the Housing Ombudsman Code.

You can read the full policy here. You can also let us know if you have a particular communication need by phoning 01226 787878 or emailing customerservices@berneslaihomes.co.uk