Welcome to our second annual Complaints and Service Improvement Report.
At Great Places we are absolutely committed to ensuring customer driven improvement. We are therefore pleased to share this report which highlights feedback from customers relating to the complaints they have raised, and how Great Places is using that feedback to inform improvements to our services, communication, policies, and strategies. Customers’ feedback is also being used in the design of a new training approach for new colleagues at Great Places and we’ll keep you updated on how this helps improve your experience as a customer going forward.
This report also shows how we’re meeting the rules set by the Housing Ombudsman Service (HOS). The HOS Complaint Handling Code became law on 1 April 2024 and says that landlords must produce an annual complaints performance and service improvement report for scrutiny and challenge. To help us with this, our customer scrutiny group, Insight, looked at last year’s report and compared it with reports from other landlords. They gave us helpful feedback, which we’ve used to improve this year’s report. We hope you find it useful and if you have any feedback, you can contact us here.
We’ve also completed our yearly self-assessment to show how we’re following the HOS Code.
We share our complaints data every three months on our website and in our My Great Place magazine and eNews bulletins. We also show how your feedback is helping us improve, using our ‘You Said, We Listened’ updates.
To give some context to the number of complaints we receive, here’s a snapshot of what our teams worked through last year:
Over the last year, we’ve reviewed how we manage complaints and introduced several improvements to make sure we’re offering a responsive and tailored service. This includes logging and handling complaints in line with the Housing Ombudsman Service (HOS) Code.
The number of complaints has continued to rise each year. In 2024/25, we handled 2,161 complaints. Since the HOS Code was introduced, complaint volumes have increased as follows:
A stage one complaint is when a customer first makes a complaint to Great Places. Our Customer Feedback Team manage these complaints, acknowledging and logging them within five working days of receiving them. The team then aims to respond within 10 working days. A stage two complaint is when a customer feels their concern hasn’t been fully addressed at stage one and asks for it to be escalated and reviewed independently by a manager or senior leader.
In 2024/25, 283 complaints were escalated to stage two – around 13% of all complaints. Under the Housing Ombudsman Service (HOS) Code, customers can ask for a complaint to be escalated to stage two within 12 months of the original issue. Since this change, stage two cases have increased by 6%. We will always consider complaints outside of this timeframe, but in most cases, customers let us know fairly quickly if they’re unhappy with the outcome.
If a customer isn’t satisfied with our response to their stage two complaint, they can ask the Housing Ombudsman Service (HOS) to review it. After carrying out their investigation, the Ombudsman shares the outcome with both the customer and Great Places – this is called a determination.
In 2024/25, we received:
Each HOS determination received can include several individual findings, depending on the different parts of the complaint – that’s why we have more findings than determinations.
When the HOS finds we have got something wrong, they will provide us with an overall maladministration rate. In 2024/25, ours was 60%, down from 76% the year before.
Last year, Great Places didn’t receive any severe maladministration findings from the HOS. While that’s encouraging, we know there’s always room to improve. We’re committed to learning from complaints and feedback to keep making our service better for customers.
All 52 findings are broken down below (service failure, maladministration and severe maladministration count in the HOS findings as ‘maladministration’):
Complaint Handling Failure Orders (CHFOs): Great Places received one CHFO in 2024/25. This was appealed and follow up from the HOS is yet to be received. We always aim to respond to any HOS outcomes within their timescales – we now use the HOS portal which makes it easier to communicate and update the HOS.
We receive a broad range of complaints – as suggested by our Insight scrutiny group, we have highlighted the top three themes/complaints, the number we received and the type of complaint. These were:
Last year, damp and mould was the second highest area for customer complaints for repairs. In 2024/25 cases have reduced from 134 (16%) to 63 (7%).
We’ve reviewed how we manage damp and mould cases and now have a clear policy so customers know what to expect. Our Repairs Team is getting ready for Awaab’s Law, which comes into effect in October 2025. We’ve listened to our customers, are prepared for the changes, and are committed to continue improving how we respond to damp and mould in customers’ homes – you can find guidance and advice on tackling damp and mould on our website.
This year saw a 58% increase in volume of Customer Experience related complaints.
We’re working with our teams and our customer scrutiny group, Insight, to better understand the rise in complaints. We’ll also involve customers with the aim of improving our services and resolving issues quickly. We are really focused on a ‘right first time’ approach, as demonstrated in our new Customer Experience strategy.
This is a 28% increase in volume of compliance related complaints compared to 2023/24.
We’re currently reviewing how we manage our gas contracts to improve the service customers receive. We’re working closely with our contractor to strengthen how the contract is managed and to make sure the service is more reliable and better for customers.
The outcomes for stage one complaints received during 2024/25 were:
The annual self-assessment against the HOS Code is available to view on our website. The self-assessment for 2024/25 highlights compliance with the HOS code.
This year, our customer scrutiny group, Insight, supported us by reviewing other organisations’ submissions and sharing best practice so we can continue to improve this report for our customers and stakeholders. If you have any feedback you’d like to share, you can send it to us via involvement.team@greatplaces.org.uk.
Great Places is committed to learning from customer feedback, including complaints. We share this learning regularly in our customer publications, primarily badging this using the ‘You Said, We Listened’ branding. Here are some of the key areas of learning and improvement in the last year.
The Customer Feedback Team has completed detailed system training to help improve the quality of our data and make sure records and reports are accurate.
We’ve also delivered training to colleagues in our Customer Hub and Plumlife Directory to help them give customers the best possible experience when contacting Great Places.
We’ve updated several of our policies and procedures, including the Tenancy Management Policy, Inclusive Services Policy, Allocations Policy, and Adaptations Policy.
These changes were made after asking customers for their views and using that feedback to guide improvements. This could be a small change or a full review of a policy, strategy, or how we deliver a service.
We launched our ‘Greater Data’ and ‘record keeping’ project following the HOS Spotlight report on Knowledge Information and Management (KIM). As part of this project, we’re improving systems, training and technology to ensure our data is accurate and useful, and that our colleagues can maintain good records. This ensures that we have detailed records to use as part of an investigation if a customer complains.
We’ve improved how we learn from complaints and customer feedback by using our Service Excellence Groups and Continuous Improvement Forum. These groups help us make changes based on what customers tell us, including feedback from Tenant Satisfaction Measures (TSMs).
A good example of this is our anti-social behaviour (ASB) service. After listening to feedback, we redesigned the service — and as a result, our ASB TSM score increased from 61.5% in 2023/24 to 70.8% in 2024/25.
We identified repairs as a key area for improvement and spoke to customers in January 2025 to understand what matters most to them. Key themes included: making it easy to book a repair, keeping customers updated, prioritising jobs that help customers feel safe, completing follow-on work quickly, and putting things right when we get it wrong.
Our Repairs Service Review is still ongoing, with our Customer Committee overseeing priorities, progress, and delivery. Please look out for regular updates on the improvements we’ll be making over the coming months.
We are improving how we handle complaints as part of this review, with focus on:
We’ve also improved training for our colleagues, including tailored Space to Learn sessions, so they understand the changes we’ve made to improve the customer experience.
As part of this review, we spoke to customers who had contacted the Housing Ombudsman Service (HOS) to understand what we could have done differently. Common feedback included:
We now look closely at every case following an Ombudsman determination, focusing on lessons learned and how we can improve. Our Customer Committee also oversees the delivery of these improvements.
We’re looking at new technology to help us communicate more quickly, clearly, and in a way that feels more personal. This includes better ways to send messages, instant updates, and tools that help us tailor information for different customer groups.
We also use our digital platform Our Voice to ask for customer views and share updates on projects. You can visit Our Voice to see what we’re working on – from our corporate plan and repairs review, to local regeneration and upgrading heating systems to help lower bills.
If you want to get more involved and share your views, please register and look out for activities on Our Voice.
We launched a new contact system in late 2024 to help our teams manage customer enquiries more effectively. As a result, we’ve introduced new shift patterns so that more colleagues are available to answer calls during busy times.
This change is helping us reduce waiting times for customers trying to reach us by phone.
This team continue to reach out to customers to gather information that will help us tailor our services. Priority has been given to customers living in our high-rise buildings to make them feel safe by knowing what they need from us. The team ensure that any tailored service is recorded and visible to any colleague or contractor. That way, we can ensure we offer a consistent service and are responding to our customers’ needs at any given point. The team will also carry out regular follow up calls to ensure our information is always up to date and accurate.
HOS Spotlight reports concentrate on an area of service where the HOS sees a high amount of failure through their casework. They examine issues and set out recommendations.
Spotlight reports issued by the HOS in 2024/25 include:
The above complement Spotlight Reports already published by the HOS:
Great Places has a clear process for meeting the Housing Ombudsman’s requirements, including how we respond to their Spotlight Reports.
Each Spotlight Report has a lead officer and a sponsor, supported by our Directors. Lead officers complete Ombudsman training, create action plans, and report on progress and improvements.
Recent changes include better record keeping (linked to KIM), work by our Inclusive Services team (linked to ARR), and updates to our policies.
The Ombudsman also publishes Special Investigation Reports. None have involved Great Places, but we still share any learning or insights with colleagues, managers, or Directors where needed.
Landlords receive individual performance reports – the most recent report for Great Places for 2023/24 is available on The Housing Ombudsman’s website.
On 14 July 2025, the Ombudsman gave feedback on our self-assessment, which we submitted by the deadline of 30 June 2024. They made 11 recommendations. These focused on our Customer Feedback Policy, especially being clear about exclusions, for example, when a complaint is made more than 12 months after the issue. Our Customer Committee asked us to include examples to help customers understand this better.
We were also asked to offer accessible versions of our customer feedback policy, alongside our animation, and to be clearer about how we share our complaints policy.
We already share updates through our customer magazines, eNews bulletins, and our website. The Ombudsman also asked us to make it clear in our policy that we only have two complaint stages. They made several recommendations to help us be more consistent and clear when communicating with customers during the complaints process.
Both our Customer Committee and Board agreed to update the customer feedback policy based on this feedback. The updated policy was approved in September 2025, and further updates to how we communicate will be completed by 31 December 2025.
Customers also tell us when we get our service right. We always look to learn from and share positive feedback around the things that customers value.
As part of our corporate plan ‘Here for Our Customers’, the Board and Customer Committee have welcomed the focus on an end-to-end review of our complaint handling service. The Customer Committee now receives quarterly updates on both the complaint review and the ongoing review of our repair services.
Throughout the year, both the Board and Customer Committee have received detailed reports on complaints, highlighting how Great Places is learning and improving services. This commitment is reflected in our improved Tenant Satisfaction Measures (TSM) for complaint handling, which rose from 34.7% in 2023/24 to 42.1% in 2024/25. We also welcome the reduction in our Housing Ombudsman Service (HOS) maladministration rate, which decreased from 76% to 60%, demonstrating our progress in learning from complaints and putting things right for our customers.
We recognise there is still more to do. The Customer Insight Group played a key role in reviewing last year’s report, and it’s encouraging to see their feedback incorporated into this year’s Customer Annual Complaint and Service Improvement Report.
Following feedback from the HOS, we have reviewed their recommendations and asked Great Places colleagues to update our complaints policy by the 30 September so this can be published and provided to the HOS as part of our self-assessment. The communication and publication updates are to be actioned by the end of December 2025. We have communicated this to the HOS.
As a Board and Customer Committee, we remain committed to ensuring our services are accessible and effective. We’ve requested that all communication updates linked to the HOS recommendations be reviewed by the Customer Insight Group as part of their scrutiny programme, with a particular focus this year on accessibility in complaint handling.
We’re pleased to see a growing emphasis on learning from customer feedback. The new Customer Experience Strategy, shaped by customer input, is a positive step forward.
The introduction of our complaints performance dashboard has enhanced transparency, allowing Board and Committee members to monitor performance, ask questions, and request further scrutiny where needed.
We also welcome the relaunch of Service Excellence Groups in Great Places, which focus on asking, listening, and acting on customer feedback to shape services, strategies, and policies. Our regular customer magazines continue to share service improvements, and we look forward to further engagement and enhanced customer experiences.
Finally, we are confident that Great Places remains compliant with the HOS Code. This year’s self-assessment has identified areas for further focus, particularly around repairs and the new Customer Experience Strategy. We will continue to oversee compliance and drive service improvements in partnership with our customers.
