Complaint Handling Code Self-Assessment

Plymouth Community Homes (PCH) is expected to comply with the Housing Ombudsman Service Complaint Handling Code

This includes producing an annual complaints performance and service improvement report for submission to the governing body, a response from the governing body and a self-assessment which demonstrates compliance with the code. 

The Housing Ombudsman expects landlords to carry out regular self-assessment against the Code which forms part of the annual complaints performance and service improvement report. Our self-assessment sets out how appropriate action is taken to ensure our complaint handling is in line with the Code and how we learn from customer feedback.

Maja Jorgensen, Board Member and Chair of the Customer Focus Committee at Plymouth Community Homes, said:

“Plymouth Community Homes is committed to living by our values: Care, Respect, Listen, Do the right thing, and nowhere more so than when something isn’t right for our residents. We welcome feedback from residents, whether complaints or compliments, and are committed to being a learning organisation. We therefore have procedures in place to ensure that learning from what could have been better informs continuous improvement across the organisation.

This year the Board has:

• Received and scrutinised quarterly updates on the volume, nature and handling of complaints, and the actions taken to improve services basing on insights
• Appointed a Member Responsible for Complaints, who meets regularly with officers to review complaints and support a positive complaints handling culture
• Implemented an updated complaints handling policy informed by Ombudsman expectations and customer input
• Continued to receive quarterly tenant satisfaction measures reports and developed extended customer insights reporting to inform organisational improvements
• Recruited a further three Customer Focus Committee resident co-optees, and now have the full complement of five co-optees on this committee

“The Board of Plymouth Community Homes confirms that the annual complaint performance and service improvement report and self-assessment has been reviewed, scrutinised and robustly challenged through both Board and Customer Focus Committee. The Board is satisfied that the report reflects our organisation’s approach and complaints handling delivery and demonstrates our compliance with the Housing Ombudsman’s Complaints Handling Code.”