Housing complaints annual report 2024/2025

The Regulator of Social Housing (RSH) has a framework of Tenant Satisfaction Measures (TSM) that all social landlords must collect and report on annually. In relation to complaint handling, the TSMs include:

• satisfaction with the landlord's approach to complaint handling
• complaints relative to the size of the landlord
• complaints responded to within Complaint Handling Code timescales

Satisfaction with the landlord's approach to complaint handling 

This is measured by a sample survey carried out by telephone. A market research company Kwest Research Ltd carried out the survey on the council's behalf.

The question asks if the tenant has made a complaint in the previous 12 months and if yes how satisfied are they with the way it has been handled. In 2024/25 satisfaction decreased from 26% in 2023/24 to 18%. Our performance puts us in the lowest quartile when benchmarked against other social landlords.

Complaints relative to the size of the landlord 

This TSM reports the number of complaints received per 1000 properties. This alongside data from the other Tenant Satisfaction Measures provides an indication as to how effectively a landlord's complaint policy is being implemented.

In 2023/24 we reported relatively low levels of complaints registered and dealt with formally. This suggested that some complaints were being dealt with outside of the council's complaints policy and therefore not in line with the CHC.

In 2024/25 we registered 35 stage 1 complaints per 1000 homes and 5.3 stage 2 complaints per 1000 homes. Both exceed the key performance indicator targets set at the beginning of the year and significant increases compared with 2023/24.

In total, 650 stage 1 complaints were registered during 2024/25 compared with 429 in 2023/24 and 99 stage 2 complaints compared with 56 in 2023/24. In the final quarter of 2024/25, 297 stage 1 complaints were registered and 51 stage 2.

Complaints responded to within the Complaint Handling Code timescale

To ensure compliance with the CHC the council has a two-stage process for Housing complaints with a target of 10 working days to respond to stage 1 complaints and 20 working days for stage 2 complaints.

In 2024/25, we responded to 67% of stage 1 complaints within the target of 10 working days. Also, during 2024/25 a backlog of 111 unanswered stage one complaints were cleared in full. These complaints all exceeded the 10-day target, and this impacted on the final performance figure. However, performance in 2024/25 shows a significant improvement from the 29% reported in 2023/24. In relation to stage 2 complaints, 84% were responded to within timescale.

The full set of TSM results will be submitted to the RSH by 30 June 2025. They will publish the results of all social landlords on their website later in the year. We will also publish the results and our response on our website.

Gateshead Council was subject to a landlord inspection by the Regulator of Social Housing (RSH) in January 2025. Landlord inspections are a key part of the regulatory framework and help identify systemic issues, areas of non-compliance and poor performance. The Transparency, Influence and Accountability standard that includes complaints handling was a key area of focus at the inspection.

We received a C2 grading, which means that we are broadly compliant with the four consumer standards with some areas of weakness. In respect of complaint handling the RSH noted issues specifically in relation to the quality of complaint responses, the timeliness of replies and our approach to learning from complaints. However, they acknowledged that Gateshead Council is both aware of these issues and is taking steps to address them.

This report provides an update on the steps we are taking, the impact to date and plans for future improvement. Through ongoing engagement, the RSH will seek assurance that change has been embedded and is delivering improved outcomes for tenants.

Introduction of the Customer Feedback and Insights Team

In response to the recommendations made in the Customer Scrutiny Review of Stage 1 Complaints, low levels of customer satisfaction with complaint handling and Housing Ombudsman intervention we established a new Customer Feedback and Insights Team. The team is responsible for responding to all stage 1 complaints and developing our approach to learning from complaints.

The Customer Scrutiny Review highlighted a number of weaknesses in the quality of complaint responses including:

• inconsistency in the structure of each letter, meaning there was a lack of an appropriate 'standard'
• responses lacked quality, such as mistakes with spelling and grammar, which makes customers feel their complaint hasn't been taken seriously
• the use of jargon and unclear language made letters difficult for customers to understand
• responses contained too much detail, including large blocks of text which was difficult to read
• the average reading age of the letters was too high. Analysis showed that factors such as language used, and the length of sentences made the letters inappropriate for different audiences with varying reading ability
• responses didn't feel personal towards the customer, meaning customers didn't feel valued
• some responses failed to outline our understanding of the complaint, as well as missing information such as contact details for the officer handling the complaint

The team was established to address those weaknesses identified and improve performance. It consists of three officers and a manager. They took over responsibility for complaint handling from the beginning of January 2025.

Since the introduction of the new team, performance has increased significantly. Between January and March 2025, 86% of stage 1 complaints were responded to within the target of 10 working days.

To assess the impact of the new team in terms of the quality of responses, the Customer Scrutiny Group carried out a follow-up exercise, checking a selection of responses to recent stage 1 complaints.

Overall, the feedback from the review was positive and the group agreed there had been a significant improvement since they carried out the initial review. It was noted that the overall quality and consistency had improved, and that it was very positive that the council now had a dedicated team in place. Some suggestions for further improvement to improve the quality of responses included:

• further simplify responses to complex cases including those that refer to legislation
• avoid repeatedly referring to Gateshead Council in a response. Once is sufficient, then use "we" instead
• as part of our approach to learning from complaints feedback to all customers the changes we have made in response to learning

The team will action the feedback received and continue to work with the scrutiny group to identify further improvements.

Identifying complaint trends is an effective tool for identifying underlying issues in service delivery that may not be immediately visible through individual complaints. By analysing patterns over time, we can proactively address recurring problems, improve operational efficiency, and prevent minor issues escalating into serious concerns.

In 2024/25, complaints received were broken down by service as follows:

To better understand the main drivers of complaints, an in-depth analysis of 200 stage 1 complaints was undertaken in March 2025. This analysis found the following key themes:

• Time taken to carry out repairs - Customers regularly waiting a long time for repairs to be carried out, following an inspection.
• Carrying out multiple inspections/surveys- Customers having had an inspection or survey report chasing up the work after waiting a long time. Due to the time passed, a further inspection needed to be carried out.
• Poor communication - Customers report waiting a long time for a repair but not hearing any updates.
• Appointment issues - Customers report missed or changed appointments without any notice, resulting in them having to contact the council for an update.
• Pest control and repairs - Customers report issues with pests accessing the property and a failure to fix the holes to stop access, suggesting issues with communication between departments.
• Time taken to rehouse and communication - Customers report they are unhappy with the length of time they must wait to be rehoused and the communication while they're waiting.
• Lack of support with antisocial behaviour - Customers report they feel a lack of support or positive outcomes with ASB cases.

Appendix 1 to this report provides further details on the findings from this exercise.

The above analysis forms part of our approach to learning from complaints. Regular reports on themes and trends are now shared with the Housing Leadership team and the member responsible for complaints. We will continue to include updates in the six-monthly reports taken to this committee and this will include our response to that learning.

In addition to the above, officers meet monthly with the member responsible for complaints (MRC), Councillor Buckley, to review complaint handling. A performance report which includes the number of complaints registered, performance against target timescales and complaint trends is provided and discussed.

Following the extensive improvement work outlined in this report, we will continue to further develop our approach to learning from complaints. This will include:

• reviewing complaint volumes, performance and themes with senior management at a service level to identify recurring trends and implement learning outcomes
• improving updates to customers around changes implemented as a result of that learning
• introducing powerful new reporting tools to better understand complaint trends and performance

In addition to complaints, we encourage employees to record compliments received from customers about colleagues and the quality of the service they receive. This is important as it also provides valuable insight into what tenants appreciate and helps us to improve the services we provide. It can also help to boost morale, highlighting the positive impact we can make to our tenants and residents. When a compliment is registered the relevant line manager is notified.

During 2024/25 a total of 106 compliments were registered. Of these 25 were internal compliments from other officers or managers and 81 were from customers. Broken down by service area:

An annual report is produced by the Housing Ombudsman Service (HOS) for each landlord and will be received later in the year for 2024/25. This will set out our performance in relation to complaints accepted by the HOS and will compare us against other social landlords.

The HOS made 21 determinations to the council in 2024/25. In those determinations, there were 45 findings. These findings are broken down as follows:

In all cases where either severe maladministration, maladministration or service failure was found, the HOS ordered the council to pay compensation to the resident.

The total compensation ordered was £19,727, an average of £986 per case across the 21 determinations.

Across the 21 determinations there are similar themes recurring throughout. They can be briefly summarized as:

• complaint handling - failure to comply with the council's complaint policy and HOS Complaint Handling Code
• handling of repairs - compliance with our own policies and timescales
• handling of damp and mould - an unreasonable amount of time taken to act when a customer makes a report of damp and mould
• customer communication - Lack of updates to customers when there are delays to repairs or complaint responses
• record keeping - inability to provide evidence to the HOS of the council's actions and recording of customer profile data

To better understand the specific detail from these themes identified by the HOS, an analysis of each determination report was carried out. This was subject to a separate report which was shared with the Housing Leadership Team and the member responsible for complaints. Further details are included in Appendix 2.

In response to low levels of satisfaction relating to complaint handling in our 2024/25 TSM survey, we are undertaking a survey solely relating to complaint handling. This survey will be carried out on a rolling basis over the course of 2025/26.

Customers who have made a complaint will be invited to complete a short survey following their complaint being resolved. The survey will ask questions specific to complaint handling and will ask customers about their experience and, if they remain dissatisfied, why that is.

The results will be analysed on a quarterly basis and will provide a valuable insight into the driving factors of dissatisfaction relating to complaint handling.

The Social Housing (Regulation) Act 2023 empowered the HOS to issue a code of practice about the procedures members of the scheme should have in place for considering complaints. It also placed a duty on the HOS to monitor compliance with the Complaint Handling Code. Social landlords are required to self-assess against the code, identifying any area of non-compliance.

It is planned to carry out the self-assessment with a focus group of tenants and leaseholders in July of this year.

In line with HO requirements, the self-assessment will be published on the council's website. It is also a requirement that social landlords demonstrate compliance through an annual submissions process. This must be completed by 30 September 2025.

The report sets out the further actions that we will take to improve complaint handling. Updates on progress will be included in the six-monthly reports to this committee and to the member responsible for complaints.

The Housing, Environment and Healthier Communities OSC is asked to provide its views on the Housing Complaints Annual Report for 2024/25.

Repairs and Construction Services

Damp and mould

• Customers complained that issues with damp and mould continued to return, and action taken by the council didn't resolve the problem.
• Delays with other repairs, such as roof and window repairs, caused problems with damp and mould in the property.
• The amount of time waited between having an inspection/survey and repairs being carried out. One customer stated they have had damp and mould since 2018 and are still awaiting dates for the repairs.
• Property conditions worsening due to the amount of time waited for the repair to be carried out.

Time taken to complete the repair

• Customers reporting long waits for repairs to be carried out. One customer advised they have waited three years for a repair to their brickwork. They report operatives have visited three times but are yet to carry out any repair. Multiple reports from customers suggesting they have waited a number of years for a repair.
• Customers report they have waited a long time for repairs, following an initial inspection or survey. In a number of these cases, due to the time passed since the initial inspection, we need to complete a further inspection, delaying the work.
• The amount of time customers had to wait for a date for their repair, resulting in the customer having to chase the repair up multiple times and still not receiving a date.
• The time taken to respond to bathroom and kitchen repairs is a recurring theme, with some customers explaining they have waited a number of years for repairs to these rooms specifically.

Communication and appointments

• Customers regularly reported we didn't turn up for repair appointments. In these cases, the customer states they didn't receive any notification that an appointment had been changed or cancelled and waited in all day. Customers reported taking time off work and this was a cause of frustration.
• Customers complained about poor communication following the report of the repair. Multiple complaints outlined that they didn't hear anything for months, resulting in them having to contact us for an update.
• Customers are saying they have been promised an update on their repair after speaking with us but hearing nothing.
• A number of customers complained that they waited in for their appointment and nobody knocked at the door. On checking their letterbox, they had received a card for a missed appointment, these customers allege that no attempt was made to gain access to the property. This has been a recurring comment from customers in flats and multi-storey blocks.

Repairs and pest control

• Customers report having pest control issues, particularly relating to rats, which required multiple visits to resolve. In these cases, the rats were able to continue to gain access as the access holes weren't blocked up following the first successful pest control action.

Neighbourhood housing

• Customers report being unhappy with how we have handled their antisocial behaviour case. They report a feeling of a lack of action and support from the council during the case.
• A customer complained about the handling of their eviction from a property, specifically about the disposal of their property and a lack of proactive action to obtain their contact information for the council to properly support them.

Lettings

• Customers complain about the length of time taken to be rehoused.
• Complaints relate to medical priority awards and the length of time taken to have these added on to a housing application.
• Customers also mention the lack of impact the medical priority has on the amount of time it takes to be rehoused.

Homelessness

A complaint was made by a customer in 2024. This wasn't registered or responded to formally, leading to contact from Citizens Advice.

Complaint handling

• In these cases, the Housing Ombudsman Service (HOS) found that the council failed to respond to complaints at both stage 1 (10 working days) and stage 2 (20 working days) within their target timescales.
• Complaint responses failed to address all the different elements of the complaint, with no explanation provided as to why.
• Often vulnerabilities, such as age and disabilities, were raised by the customer when they made the complaint, the HOS found on several occasions that these weren't considered or addressed in the complaint response. One customer provided medical evidence of the health impact caused by the issues complained about, which weren't acknowledged in the response.
• When a complaint response was delayed, the customer was not kept informed of when they would receive a response to their complaint. In some cases, residents waited months for a response to their stage 1 complaint.
• The council didn't follow its own complaints policy by failing to escalate a stage 1 complaint to stage 2 following the customer's request.

Handling of repairs

• There were unreasonable delays in the time taken for the council to attend the customer's home to carry out an inspection following them reporting a repair.
• There were also unreasonable delays in the time taken to carry out work following an inspection or survey.
• Failure to comply with our own timescales for carrying out urgent repairs, particularly relating to roof repairs.
• In one case, a customer waited 17 months for the full repair to be completed after the council carried out a 'make safe' repair. This repair related to a leak in the customer's roof and subsequent water ingress. This caused a further issue of damp and mould which could have been avoided if the initial repair was completed quickly.
• Poor communication with the resident meant that they regularly had to contact the council for updates to their repair work, leaving one customer chasing updates for over a year without any record of the council proactively contacting them.
• Unreasonable delays in decision-making when moving residents into temporary accommodation due to the condition of the home. In one case, this happened despite prior knowledge of disability vulnerabilities in the household and having dealt with the customer for similar repair issues in the past.

Damp and mould

• The council failed to take vulnerabilities into account, such as disability and age, when reports of damp and mould were made, leading to vulnerable customers living in a property with these issues.
• Most cases were linked to other ongoing repairs. Delays to carrying out these repairs meant it took longer to resolve the damp and mould issues. In one case, a customer reported damp and mould three months after reporting a leaky roof which wasn't resolved for another 14 months.
• There was a breakdown in the relationship between the council and the customer in some cases, due to multiple visits not fixing the issues and the overall time taken to carry out repairs. This made it harder for the council to gain access to the customer's home to carry out works, and delayed matters further.

Record-keeping

• Poor record-keeping was highlighted in several cases, particularly that we couldn't provide the HOS with evidence that repairs, or an inspection/survey had been carried out and when.
• The council was aware that a customer had health issues, but our records didn't accurately indicate what they were, which prevented us from taking proactive action to reduce the impact of any works required.
• In one case, the council were unable to provide any record of any communication with a customer while they were in temporary accommodation, awaiting repairs to their home.
• In several cases, the council were unable to provide copies of inspections/surveys to the HOS due to  changes in contractors.
• This also meant that the council often had to carry out a further inspection/survey due to having no record of the initial work, which delayed matters further.