Reporting

Complaint Handling Code Self-Assessment

The Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code (the Code) sets out best practice for landlord’s complaint handling procedures, to enable a positive complaints culture across the social housing sector, regardless of the size or type of landlord. The Code encourages landlord-tenant relationships so that residents can raise a complaint if things go wrong. The Code became statutory on 1 April 2024, meaning that all members of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme are obliged by law to follow its requirements.

The Housing Ombudsman also has a legal duty to ensure landlords complaint procedures and responses are compliant with the Code.

Our Board considered Rooftop’s self-assessment against the Housing Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code. The Board is satisfied that Rooftop is compliant and remains committed to ongoing improvement. Our Member Responsible for Complaints (MRC) has lead responsibility for complaints to support a positive complaint handling culture. A priority for the Board is to ensure that Rooftop has an effective complaint handling process that informs service improvement for customers. Learning from complaints and making service improvements as a result of them is one of the most important parts of the complaints handling process. The Board acknowledges that complaints performance for 2024/25 has improved significantly from 2023/24. However, we also acknowledge that complaint volumes are increasing not just for Rooftop, but throughout the housing sector. We anticipate this trend will continue as we encourage customers to tell us when our service fails to meet the high standards we have set. To counter this forecast uplift and to continue to improve performance, the Board has approved further investment to expand the Complaints Team. The Board has also approved additional resource to improve our repair service which has been a significant source of complaints. The Board, and specifically the MRC are committed to having meaningful oversight of complaints. A Complaints Improvement Plan has been approved, and implementation will be monitored by the MRC over the coming months to ensure we deliver an efficient and focused service. This statement has been agreed by the Member Responsible for Complaints, on behalf of the Rooftop Board.