Measures have been agreed by East Devon District Council (EDDC) to improve its social housing service, including the handling of complaints from tenants.

The council says it is concerned about the number of complaints indicating that it has not got the service 'right first time'.

Formal complaints have been on the increase over the last few years. There were 32 in 2018/19, and 138 in 2021/22. Figures available for the current year (2022/23) show that the council received 54 in the first six months (April to September). Most complaints relate to the council’s repairs/assets service for its tenants.

Complaints are initially investigated by EDDC’s corporate complaints team, and if the complainant is unhappy with its response they can ask the Housing Ombudsman to look into the issue.

During 2021/22 five complaints went to the ombudsman, and in four cases failings were identified in their handling by EDDC. In December the ombudsman wrote to EDDC saying ‘such a high rate of maladministration is concerning and for issues to occur across this proportion of findings suggests improvements could be made to prevent complaints’. Read more: Watchdog criticises council over social housing maladministration

This newspaper has also been contacted by EDDC tenants who were unhappy with the way their complaints had been handled. Some felt they had been subjected to denial of their problems, intimidation, and delaying tactics intended to make them give up pursuing their complaint.

What changes will be made?

Earlier this month EDDC’s Housing Review Board discussed what could be learned from the outcomes of complaints, and the improvements needed. A series of recommendations was agreed, including training for all relevant staff in customer service and complaints handling, and retraining in the council’s ‘behaviours framework’ with sets out how staff communicate with customers.

The recommendations also included giving staff refresher training in record keeping, and for all housing complaints to be tracked and monitored by a dedicated officer.

An EDDC spokesperson said: “We do not accept that there are failings in complaint handling through the corporate complaints process. We are concerned about the number of housing complaints and the number of instances when we fail to ‘get the service right first time’ for our tenants.

“The purpose of the report was to assess the nature of complaints and learn from complaints.

“We do not recognise any suggestion of denial, intimidation or bullying, in fact we take a positive approach to complaints, and ensure that the complaints system is easy to access.

“We have assessed our complaint handling process against the Housing Ombudsman’s code for complaint handling and have ensured that our system mirrors good practice. We keep our complaint handling process under scrutiny.”