In April 2024 the Housing Ombudsman released a new Complaint Handling Code to enable us to resolve complaints raised by our residents quickly and to use the learning from complaints to drive service improvements.

We are fully compliant with the new code and are committed to providing an annual self-assessment, to ensure we remain compliant, enabling a positive complaint handling and improvement culture across the organisation. This self-assessment is reported to our Board members and is also available for customers.

Our Year-end Complaints Report and Our Self-Assessment against the New Housing Ombudsman Complaint Handling Code have recently been shared with our Board Members. On behalf of the Board, OVH’s Member Responsible for Complaints, Peter Crosby thanked OVH staff for sharing and said,

‘The Board acknowledge a significant increase in Complaints across the Sector and support the heightened Regulatory focus on quality, assurance and accountability. Board are pleased with the level of detail and scrutiny provided within the Year-end Complaints Report. The improvement measures, both implemented and identified help to ensure continuous learning, understand customer perception and priorities, and focus on root cause analysis to enhance Customer Experience. Board are also pleased to note compliance against the New Housing Ombudsman Complaint Handling Code, shared in the form of a detailed Self-Assessment’.

We continually monitor our complaints to improve our processes and make it easier for you to raise a complaint when needed. We will report on the complaints we receive and provide information on other feedback we receive in our annual Complaints Report.

We regularly review how we are performing as an organisation and report on our performance quarterly and annually.