Thrive Homes is committed to providing a fair deal for customers and prides itself on having an open-door policy for customers to voice their opinions on our services and be heard.
The Thrive team has worked hard to develop a thorough complaints process that ensures customers are listened to and that we take accountability for service failures.
In May 2021, an independent audit of Thrive’s process against the new Housing Ombudsman complaints code was carried out. Thrive was delighted to receive independent reassurance that their process fully complies. Jo Barrett, Executive Director Operations said: “We’re really pleased with the outcome of the initial audit. Ensuring our customers have a way to voice their concerns and be heard is important to us, and we’re reassured that our complaints process enables this. I’m proud of the Thrive team for making this a reality”.
This is the first audit, with another due to take place in Autumn 2021. The success of the first audit was down to:
- openness with customers – communicating the new code and consistently offering customers the opportunity to provide feedback on the complaints process
- internal training – ensuring all colleagues are familiar with the new code and what steps they need to follow to ensure we comply.
Moving forward, Thrive will continue to offer customers the opportunity to give feedback and has built a process to ensure it identifies lessons learned from every scenario as a way of ensuring a fair deal is consistently delivered. The latest lessons learned and actions being taken can be accessed at: thrivehomes.org.uk/yourfeedback/
Where the complaints process has been exhausted, customers have the right to refer their complaint onto the Housing Ombudsman for review who will determine whether landlords have upheld their processes and if there is cause for investigation. As detailed in its Annual Report for Tenants, Thrive is proud to report that 0 complaints were required to be investigated by the Housing Ombudsman in 2019-20.
Whilst these occurrences are rare for Thrive, an ongoing complaint, with matters a customer believed to be related to anti-social behaviour, reached the Housing Ombudsman in 2020/21. Following review, it was concluded that Thrive followed its process and responsibilities and the complaint was closed in May 2021 with no further actions required. You can read more about this and the outcome here.