Handling complaints

We want to make sure that everyone in Islington has a place to call home which is secure, decent, and genuinely affordable. We work hard to deliver high quality services at all times to every one of our residents, but we know that we don’t always get it right.

When things go wrong, it’s important that we listen to what you are telling us, act quickly to put it right and learn from our mistakes.

Your feedback in 2023/24 and what we are doing about it

Your feedback from 2022 and 2023 told us that you are most concerned with:

• repairs in your homes
• anti-social behaviour (ASB)
• our handling of complaints.

What we're doing about these issues

Based on these complaints, we have:

• developed new policies and reviewed and updated existing ones to improve our performance in several areas, including:
  • how we support vulnerable tenants
  • tackling damp and mould
  • managing ASB and noise nuisance
  • supporting residents through the management transfer process
• focused on improving record keeping by introducing a new procedure and asking each service to develop action plans for continuous improvement and oversight
• carried out a complete review of our approach to tackling ASB which has led to improved case management and reporting and reduced area sizes so there are more resources for case management
• made improvements to our repairs service, including:
  • introducing a team to deal with high-risk cases
  • rolling out summer testing of boilers to reduce breakdowns in winter
  • working with our communal heating contractor to improve communication and customer service
  • reviewing our call centre scripts so that we record accurate information to reduce missed and repeat appointments
  • significantly reducing historical work in progress cases.
• introduced audits of Stage 1 complaints three times a year, a senior management review of responses, and telephone satisfaction surveys to find ways to improve our complaints handling.

How we performed in 2023/2024

These statistics are different from the Tenant Satisfaction Measures (TSM) Management Indicators because they relate to all complaints received by the Homes and Neighbourhoods department, not just those that fall within the criteria of the TSM indicator. Read more about our TSM performance and what they mean.