Making a complaint

We aim to provide excellent services at all times, but we know we can’t deliver a perfect service every time. Sometimes our services may not meet your expectations, and if this happens we want to know about it.

We will do our best to resolve the issue quickly and efficiently, and use your complaint to continue to improve the service we provide.

Talk to us first

If you aren’t happy with the service you’ve received please talk to us first. Tell us why you're unhappy and what you want us to do. Often this will sort the problem out on the spot, without needing to fill in forms or to put your complaint in writing. However, if you are not happy with our response you can make a formal complaint.

Making a formal complaint

If you want to make a formal complaint please fill in our online complaints form. We’ll let you know that we’ve received your complaint within two working days.Reporting a complaint will not affect your right to fair treatment and service from us in the future.

What happens next?

Stage 1: Your complaint will be investigated by the manager responsible for the service being complained about. We will contact you to discuss how we can resolve your complaint and will give you a full response within 10 working days. If we think it might take longer than this we will explain why. The vast majority of complaints are sorted out by this stage, but if you are not happy with the solution you can request it to be reviewed again.

Stage 2: The review of your complaint will be carried out by a review panel made up of a City South board member, tenant Scrutiny Panel member, and a senior member of staff not previously involved with the case. We’ll give you a full response within 20 working days.

Independent review: If you still aren’t satisfied following our two internal stages you can ask to have your complaint reviewed independently from City South. This will be done by your local MP, local Councillor, or a Tenants Complaints Panel.

Most cases are resolved early on but if you are still not satisfied at the end of the process you can ask for your case to be taken to the Housing Ombudsman. If you want to do this we will explain exactly what you need to do.

Our standards

When we receive complaints we will:

  • Deal with them promptly, courteously, fairly, and in confidence
  • Offer an apology for any failures in service
  • Keep you informed of progress, and your rights to redress, at each stage
  • Ensure all staff handling complaints have received the appropriate training
  • Learn from our mistakes to improve our services
  • Acknowledge, record and monitor them, publishing information about how we perform against our service standards