Complaints and compliments

Compliments

We welcome all feedback from our customers, and we'd especially like to know if we have done something well.

If you would like us to pass on your thanks and compliments to a member of staff to let them know that they have done a good job, please get in touch. Or if you have an idea of how we could do something better, we'd welcome your feedback.

You can email us at swanimprovement@swan.org.uk.

Complaints

We know that sometimes things can go wrong. When this happens, we want to know about it so that we can put things right. Our Complaints Policy explains more about how we manage your complaints and what you can expect from us if you do complain.

What is a complaint?

As part of our Complaints Policy, we have adopted the Housing Ombudsman’s definition of a complaint. We consider a complaint to be:

“An expression of dissatisfaction, however made, about the standard of service, actions, or lack of action by Swan, our own staff, or those acting on our behalf, affecting an individual customer or group of customers.”

There are however some things that we won’t investigate as part of our complaint’s procedure. You can find out more detail on this in our Complaints Policy. Some examples are provided below:

• A first request for a service or information. If you have a question or an issue, please contact us to ask us about it.
• The first report of anti-social behaviour. The initial allegation of anti-social behaviour will be investigated in line with our ASB Policy.
• Anything that is not our responsibility such as bin collections or an increase in council tax.
• An issue or problem that happened over six months ago.
• Anything that has already been through our internal complaints procedure.
• Initial disputes or queries about service charge budgets or accounts. You can contact us if you have any queries about your service charge.
• Any issues that are subject to legal proceedings, or where there are other appeal bodies established to deal with the issues (e.g. First Tier Tribunal – Property Chamber).

There may be occasions when we don’t accept a complaint in line with our policy. If this happens, we will explain to you the reasons for this, and write to you to confirm this. 

How to make a complaint

If you have a complaint, you can fill out our feedback form or call our Customer Relations Officers on 0300 303 2500 (option four).

If you do make a complaint to us, please explain your issue fully. This can include providing any dates or background information and explaining what you would like to happen to resolve your issue.

Next steps

When you make a complaint, we will carry out an initial assessment to understand what the best way to resolve your issues will be. We will contact you to discuss your complaint within five working days.

When we investigate your complaint, we will:

• Investigate your complaint thoroughly to ensure that we fully understand your complaint and look at all the information that is available to us
• Contact you every three to five working days to keep you informed about our progress in investigating your complaint.
• Aim to respond to your complaint within 10 working days. Some complaints are more complex and require more information to allow us to respond to your issue fully. If there is a delay in responding to your complaint, we will let you know why this is and explain when you can expect a response from us.
• Contact you to discuss the outcome of our investigations. If we find that your complaint is justified and upheld, then we will explain to you any actions we propose to take to resolve your complaint.
• Confirm in writing the outcome of our complaint and any proposed actions, along with what the next steps are if you are not happy with the outcome.

If you want to take it further

If you are still unhappy with the outcome of your complaint once you have exhausted our internal complaints procedure, you can refer your complaint to an independent designated person. They will determine whether to contact us on your behalf or refer you to the Housing Ombudsman. You can also contact the Housing Ombudsman directly.

You can read the Housing Ombudsman Complaint Handling Code here. Landlords are encouraged to promote the Code and to share the outcome of their self-assessment with residents. You can read our current self-assessment here.