It’s been another busy year for complaints teams. The Ombudsman has investigated more cases than ever before, and is finding a high rate of maladministration.

There are higher expectations for landlords to meet, particularly around damp, mould and other disrepair. “Without change we effectively risk the managed decline of one of the largest provisions of social housing in Europe,” said Ombudsman Richard Blakeway at the launch of his ‘Repairing Trust’ Spotlight report in May.  And with the introduction of Awaab’s Law in October there will be requirements on repairs teams to act quickly – or face complaints or legal action.

Against this background, we will hear how some landlords are successfully managing their complaints services more effectively and increasing tenant satisfaction with complaint handling.

Key sessions include:

• The complaint handling landscape – recent changes and future challenges

• The complaints team – how landlords are structuring their services to improve efficiency, including benchmarking data

• Tenant satisfaction – how one landlord achieved the highest TSM rating

• Involving tenants in complaints – how resident involvement can lead to improvement.

Why attend?

The annual complaints conference is a unique opportunity to hear direct from practitioners and complaints specialists, and to understand the changing expectations of the Ombudsman and Regulator and how landlords are responding. Hear also from other delegates, ask your own questions and share good practice.

Essential for:

The conference is aimed at everyone who deals with or has oversight of complaints, from frontline staff to senior management and governing bodies. It’s also relevant to residents who are involved in complaint panels or scrutinising complaint-handling.

Dave Simmons, Associate, HQN

Dave Simmons worked for the Housing Ombudsman for 15 years as an Adjudicator and Sector Engagement Lead. He was responsible for developing and delivering training to landlords and residents to improve complaint-handling and is a co-author of the Complaint Handling Code. He also spent two years as Peabody’s Compliance Operations Manager, where his duties included overseeing compliance with the Ombudsman Service and sector best practice.

Dave is a long-term associate of HQN and Tpas (tenant engagement experts) and in his various roles he has delivered hundreds of training workshops, forums and webinars to the housing sector. He has also written dozens of briefings and best practice documents which he currently continues to do in his capacity as HQN’s Complaints Hub Lead.

Dave is an accredited mediator, company director of ‘The Housing Mediators’ and trustee of a mediation charity.

John Goodwin, Associate, HQN

John Goodwin is a housing consultant and trainer, with extensive experience in social housing, particularly in complaint handling, resident involvement, inspection and governance. He is an HQN consultant and trainer and a Tpas Associate.

John was Compliance and Systemic Lead at the Housing Ombudsman Service until 2022 and was involved in drafting the Ombudsman’s first Complaint Handling Code. He also delivered training to landlords and residents to improve complaint handling and learning from complaints across the sector.

Before joining the Ombudsman, John spent ten years with the Audit Commission’s Housing Inspectorate – inspecting a range of housing organisations and services.

John previously worked for Shelter in several roles, including Head of Legal Services and Editor of ROOF magazine. He began his housing career in homelessness, housing advice and resettlement with a London Borough.

John has written and edited a number of housing and homelessness publications and is an accredited mediator.

Rachel Mackay, Head of Service Improvement, BPHA

Rachel has worked in housing for nearly two decades, holding roles in customer experience, service improvement, and housing management. This breadth of experience gives her valuable insight into the challenges customers face and what it takes to deliver positive outcomes. In her current role, she champions the customer voice and promotes a customer-first culture. Two years ago, Rachel led a transformation in how BPHS manages complaints, establishing a new team to improve complaint handling for customers and in preparation for the changes to the Housing Ombudsman Service (HOS) Code.

Andrea Baker, Director of Housing & Corporate Services, Poplar HARCA

Andrea has worked in housing for over 35 years, with the last 17 at Poplar HARCA. For the past decade she’s also led HARCA’s Corporate Services. Along the way, she’s taken on a range of non-exec roles —  Board Member, Chair, and Trustee —  in housing and other sectors.

Steve Maine, Customer Service Operations Manager, Metropolitan Thames Valley Housing

Steve is a leading expert in customer service complaint resolution, spending nearly 30 years across the Financial and Housing industry turning negative feedback into opportunities for improvement and positive change.

His expertise includes understanding the true root-cause, implementing remedies to support customer satisfaction, and reviewing current strategies and plans to constantly meet customer demand.

Steve is passionate about speaking to the customer at every opportunity of the complaint journey to ensure the customer is constantly listened to and hearing their feedback.

10:30am Welcome and introductions

• Dave Simmons, Associate, HQN

• John Goodwin, Associate, HQN

10:40am The complaints landscape

• Dave Simmons, Associate, HQN

• John Goodwin, Associate, HQN

John and Dave will provide a summary of the key events that have impacted on landlord complaint teams over the previous year as well as those in the pipeline. They will also share insight from their work with multiple landlord complaint teams over the previous year and highlight key themes and points of discussion.

11:15am What is the right way to manage complaints?

• Rachel Mackay, Head of Service Improvement, BPHA

Two years ago BPHA moved from each individual team responding to their own complaints to setting up a centralised complaints team.  In this session Rachel will cover:

• Why the decision was taken
• What it involved
• The results
• The pros and cons and support BPHA experienced.

11:55am Break

12:10pm How to improve tenant satisfaction with complaint handling

• Andrea Baker, Director of Housing & Corporate Services, Poplar HARCA

In this session Andrea will outline how Poplar HARCA have improved complaints satisfaction including:

• How Poplar HARCA has built trust and improved services through honesty and clarity with residents, including sincere apologies
• How teams talk about residents and how this reflects the organisation’s values
• How leadership reduces complaints: how Poplar HARCA are equipping staff to resolve issues quickly, fix root causes and ensure leaders are visible and accountable.

12:50pm Resident involvement in complaints

• Steve Maine, Customer Service Operations Manager, Metropolitan Thames Valley Housing

Steve will outline how Metropolitan Thames Valley Housing involve residents in their continuous complaint transformation including:

• Identifying areas of improvement
• Redesigning the model
• Embedding continuous improvement
• empowering teams
• Strengthening partnerships
• Driving high performance
• What success looks like.

1:25pm Closing comments

1:30pm Close

If you are unable to attend an event or public training course, please let us know in writing (email is fine) at least 48 hours before. Please email [email protected]

Otherwise, a cancellation fee of £60 plus VAT will be chargeable.

If you are using a package place to attend and do not inform us within the agreed time frame, then a place will be taken to cover your non-attendance.

Cancellations must be made in writing and will be acknowledged by HQN Limited.