Landlords urged to overhaul leadership and culture when handling complaints

Francesca Macey, the Campbell Tickell consultant who led the research, told a webinar presenting the findings: “Right now, the sector is running on goodwill rather than a good infrastructure, and that’s the definition, we say, of a hero culture, which is very admirable, but ultimately is going to be unsustainable.”

The report measured seven aspects of complaints culture using a tool developed by the consultancy, called CultureScan, drawing on more than 1,000 responses from staff, board members and resident panels.

The five organisations that took part were Barnsbury Housing Association, Community Gateway Association, Gentoo, Sovereign Network Group (SNG) and West Lancashire Borough Council.

Richie Rumbelow, customer experience director at SNG, said: “The complaints culture scan will help shape how the housing sector continues to strengthen its approach to handling and resolving customer issues.

“For SNG, the findings highlight known opportunities to improve our complaints management systems, while also offering a fresh reminder of the importance of recognising and celebrating our improvements internally.”

Saleha Gani, head of service improvement at Community Gateway, said: “The CultureScan highlighted key sector-wide themes, particularly the importance of leadership and organisational behaviours in shaping how complaints are handled.

“It reinforced that while processes may be in place, culture, how empowered colleagues feel, how learning is embedded and how consistently tenants are heard remains a key factor in delivering a positive complaints experience.”

According to the tool, empathy emerged as the strongest predictor of tenant satisfaction, scoring 0.86 out of a possible 1.0. Organisations with higher empathy scores also received fewer formal complaints.

The research also found a lack of awareness among bosses about the reality of complaints-handling, with senior leaders holding a more positive view than the colleagues and tenants dealing with complaints day-to-day.

Ms Macey added: “Governing bodies and colleagues are seeing very different realities. This gap can create misalignment, fragmented culture, and also weaken trust in the sense between residents and an organisation.”

Campbell Tickell acknowledged that all five organisations had already agreed to improve their complaints-handling before taking part in the research, meaning the findings may not reflect the broader sector.

However, sector-wide data has previously shown that complaints-handling is the lowest-scoring of the 12 measures used to assess tenant satisfaction nationally, at just 36%, according to the Regulator of Social Housing.

Richard Blakeway, the housing ombudsman, who also addressed the webinar on the report, said complaints are “a daily reflection of the way in which teams work with each other, and the way in which teams work with residents, and how processes and practices work”.

He continued: “They can give you a sense of, are your values being lived? Is your behaviour framework being followed? Are you seeing behaviours that you wouldn’t expect? Are your processes empowering of people?

“Complaints are a goldmine for providing that kind of insight, but it’s important to make sure that senior leaders are able to engage in that intelligence, and boards are able to debate it.”

Mr Blakeway added that board members should be “getting outside the boardroom, getting on the ground, going to visit properties, and also making sure they’re not going to just visit the properties that have recently been redecorated”.

Jane Maguire, housing regulatory and quality manager at West Lancashire Borough Council, said the research gave “a clear and honest understanding of our organisational culture, recognising where we are performing well while also providing valuable insight into where we need to reflect, adapt and make meaningful improvements”.