Housing Management view the panel s input as invaluable to the improvement of service provision to residents.

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1 RBK S FORMAL MANAGEMENT RESPONSE: COMPLAINTS INVESTIGATION (HOUSING) Review Objective - KRiSP carried out a review of complaints with particular reference to the extent to which the complaint handling process is efficient for staff and effective for residents. The three objectives of the investigation were: 1. To consider potential shortfalls in the complaints process 2. To investigate how complaint handling is a customer-focussed process 3. To establish how complaints are resolved and how lessons are learned from them Review Outcome - KRiSP made 13 recommendations for service improvement, focussing on processes and procedures, customer communications and efficiency of the service. General comments Housing Management would first like to thank KRiSP on their hard work; the fact that this was KRiSP s most labour intensive investigation to date (with a greater number of interviews, mystery shopping exercises and benchmarking exercises) is acknowledged and appreciated. The continued hard work of the panel remains valuable to the council and the Housing Service. Housing Management view the panel s input as invaluable to the improvement of service provision to residents. The Council accepts in part or in its entirety all the recommendations made in the final report - with the exception of Recommendation 9. However, RBK need to be mindful of the current financial environment it finds itself in. This will influence RBK s ability to deliver on recommendations made. RBK has done a lot to improve complaint handling but it is clear from the KRiSP report that there are some remaining issues, yet to be resolved. RBK acknowledge that better monitoring and control is needed regardless of the point of origin. This report highlights this and makes some good recommendations that will help address these issues. The Council s response and intended actions in response to the recommendations made within the report are detailed below. A full action plan will be provided separately to this formal response.

2 Recommendation 1 That there is a single, shorter accessible policy and step-by-step procedure for housing complaints that is accessible to both residents and staff It is agreed that the longer policy is unclear and inaccessible to both staff and residents. The Risk & Assurance team will look to modify the existing step-by-step procedure that is currently available to staff and make this available online for all residents to access. Recommendation 2 That there should be an open and visible approach to inform residents on how to complain. This should include information being available on posters at the two main offices at Tadlow and Guildhall 2, through the Kingston Federation of Residents and TRAs and on notice boards, including in public libraries. All routes for making complaints should be accepted as valid. It is agreed that residents should be aware of how to complain and RBK is committed to making sure that information is available and accessible to residents. We will carry out a cost benefit analysis which will help us assess how best to use the resources available to us. As a quick resolution to this issue, the Council will ensure that copies of the Have Your Say leaflet are available to residents via the Kingston Federation of Residents, Tadlow office housing office reception, to TRAs, and RBK Information & Advice Centre along with any other appropriate offices. The Council will look to create a mechanism that means that leaflets in all offices remain well stocked. The Council will also look to promote information about how to complain in Home Life and on the television screen in Guildhall 2. The Council will look to explore the possibility of displaying information about how to complain on screensavers on computers in appropriate places. This may or may not include libraries, depending on the logistics of this. In addition to the recommendation by KRiSP, the Council would like to highlight that it is looking to place an ipad in the Information & Advice Centre at Guildhall 2 for residents to be able to use to make comments, complaints or compliments.

3 Recommendation 3 That all first time fixes are recorded and automatically escalated to complaints by RBK after five working days or sooner for emergency situations. The Council s policy and procedure currently is to escalate first time fixes to complaints after three days if they are unresolved. This is currently a manual process and relies upon staff to ensure that this is done. The Council accepts that this is not regularly happening. The Council is currently scoping the possibility of making this function automated as part of the new CRM system. The Council also commits to actively monitoring the 10 working day Stage 1 timeframes to ensure full compliance with the Corporate Complaints policy. Should this prove not to be possible the complainant will be contacted immediately with an explanation. Recommendation 4 That there is training for Contact Centre staff to ensure that they identify and capture complaints accurately. Despite existing training and a belief that Call Centre are generally very capable in managing this process, the Council accepts that the KRiSP report has shown that it is possible that some complaints may be mishandled. Therefore, the although the Council has already ensured that all Contact Centre staff are fully trained in how to handle complaints but will look to make call handling processes and procedures clearer to ensure that Call Centre staff are effectively managing incoming complaints. We partially accept this recommendation.

4 Recommendation 5 That during Stage 1, a two day working target is set for starting work on the complaint, that the complainant is informed, in line with the Have Your Say booklet, within two working days and all contact with the complainant is recorded. This is already within the procedure and policy set out by the Council and any complaint which is registered on the CRM system will automatically send out an acknowledgement response immediately When complaints are not logged onto the CRM system, this acknowledgement is not automatically sent and must be done manually by officers. The Council accepts that this does not always happen. Housing will investigate the best option for ensuring that complaints are logged on the CRM system. The Council commits to informing the complainant within two working days of the allocation of a Stage One complaint.. We partially accept this recommendation. Recommendation 6 That there is a rigorous approach to gaining customer feedback including satisfaction surveys, Mystery Shopping and Customer Journey Mapping. Housing remains committed to gaining customer feedback and already does this through satisfaction surveys with Repairs and Better Homes as well as completing customer experience surveys following calls to the Contact Centre. The Council will also be conducting a Survey of Tenants and Residents (STAR) in the New Year which will collect feedback from a large sample of Council tenants and leaseholders. To improve customer feedback mechanisms the Council has plans to upgrade the Contact Centre s telephony system so that residents can leave verbal comments rather than just numeric feedback through the customer experience surveys. Following KRiSP s recommendation, customer experience surveys will be sent out with every complaint response in order to gather feedback about residents experience of complaining.

5 Recommendation 7 The policy, procedures, information materials and Stage 2 letter should make it clear that housing complaints are referred to the Housing Ombudsman. These should also acknowledge the different route to be referred to the Local Government Ombudsman in line with the Localism Act The Council completely accepts that this should be rectified and all letters and information about the Housing Ombudsman will be corrected immediately. The website will also be updated to ensure that is clear that housing complaints must go to the Housing Ombudsman. Recommendation 8 That there should be a clear link on the home page titled making a complaint and leading to a drop down list of departments which include housing. The Council had already committed to updating and improving the website and will work to ensure that accessing information and making a complaint online is as simple as possible. The Council will make an effort to highlight how to make complaints; the Council is already looking at the best way to highlight links to complaint pages on their website. Housing will update its own pages on the website to ensure that there are clear links to the corporate complaints form

6 Recommendation 9 That until a new CRM system is introduced, all staff involved in complaints are trained in using the existing CRM system for recording both first time fixes and complaints. We accept that the effective use of CRM is integral to improving complaints handling. However, the current CRM system will be replaced in the near future. The new CRM design and functionality will be coming to the appropriate functions as part of the consultative process in the coming weeks. It is felt that training staff on a CRM system that will be discontinued is not an efficient use of available resources, especially at this time of intense demand and pressure on those resources. Once the new CRM is in place training will be an important element in ensuring complaints are logged and managed effectively. We do not accept this recommendation. Recommendation 10 That a new CRM system is introduced with training for all staff which includes managing complaints. The Council is already in the process of scoping a new CRM system and commits to ensuring that all staff are trained in effectively and efficiently using the system. There is not yet a go-live date for the new system, but this is likely to be in early in the new financial year.

7 Recommendation 11 That a designated officer takes overall responsibility for all housing complaints and for ensuring that all complaints are followed up internally and that their actions are implemented and recorded, with complainants kept updated with progress. All staff will have access to the new CRM system which will increase corporate visibility across housing and its complaints. This will mean that proper monitoring can be carried out and any failures captured early. In light of this recommendation, Housing commits to completing an annual audit of complaints in quarter 4 of the financial year to ensure that the qualities of responses and learning and actions from complaints have been completed. This responsibility for completing this task will sit with the Strategy & Performance team. To ensure that there is an improved culture around complaints within the Housing service, the Risk & Assurance team will develop procedures for the managers of officers who handle Stage 1 complaints to ensure that all aspects of complaints are monitored and followed-up. This will include closer monitoring of the weekly reports generated by the Corporate Complaints team. We partially accept this recommendation. Although we agree with the principle of the recommendation, at this time, the Council is unable to completely action this. Recommendation 12 That the Harassment Policy is updated. That the recommendation of the Stage 2 Investigation Officer is implemented urgently in relation to the Harassment Policy and it is monitored. The Council will ensure that this is completed and that all parties to the complaint are updated about progress. Detail about when this will be completed will be provided in the action plan.

8 Recommendation 13 That the CRM system is completed with lessons learned from all complaints and that these are reported to the responsible person identified in recommendation 11. Also that the appropriate fields on the CRM system are completed showing lessons learned. For Stage 2 complaints, learning and implementation thereof is monitored by the Team Leader Risk & Assurance and this is followed-up 3 6 months after the complaint response is sent to the customer. To ensure that learning is followed-up from Stage 1 complaints, the Council will look to ensure that the new CRM system will allow the reporting from the fields that show the lessons learned. This will then be monitored by the Corporate Complaints team and the Housing Strategy & Performance team. The Council fully accepts the CRM as currently constituted has some limitations. Once the new system is implemented these will be addressed and better awareness of complaints will improve performance.