Our Annual Complaints Performance and Service Improvement Report (April 2024 to March 2025)

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Our Annual Complaints Performance and Service Improvement Report provides an analysis of the customer feedback we've received during 2024 to 2025 under the complaints handling procedure.

If you aren’t happy with the service you've received from us, you can complain. As a business we always want to do our best to put things right, so it’s really important that we handle complaints properly. 

Here’s an overview of what's been happening with customer feedback and complaints over the last year (April 2024 to March 2025), our performance in handling them, and the steps we're taking to improve our service. These figures are taken from our full Annual Complaints Performance and Service Improvement Report*.

Each year we report to our Board on how we have performed, and we also want to share this with our customers. *Just scroll down if you'd like to access our full Annual Complaints Performance and Service Improvement Report.

The report aims to highlight key information and trends from customer feedback during the given time. It also outlines our plans to improve services by addressing key themes raised in complaints.

You can also find our latest self-assessment against the Housing Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code, which helps ensure we’re meeting best practice standards.

Sharon Hanbury

Sharon Hanbury, our Member Responsible for Complaints has prepared the following Governing Body response to our Annual Complaints Performance and Service Improvement Report:

"We’ve listened to our customers and we’re taking real steps to improve how we respond to complaints and learn from them. We have doubled the complaints team from four to eight staff and complaint response times have improved considerably to 78.9% of complaints being responded to within the Housing Ombudsman timescales, compared to 41.5% last year.

"We have received 1,447 complaints compared to 1,210 last year, which is expected, and in line with the national picture as we have encouraged and made it easier for customers to report complaints to us.

"Repairs and Maintenance is the reason why most of our customers contact us and just over 60% of all complaints relate to this service.

"Our analysis of the root causes of complaints indicates that communication is an increasingly key area. We are implementing a range of improvement areas into our Cx Housing System which is fundamental and cross cutting in nature which will result in step change and improvements.

"The Board, supported by the Operations Committee and the Member Responsible for Complaints pay particular attention to complaints, are determined to see and are committed to support and deliver the necessary improvements."

Here are the headline numbers for complaints made to Bolton at Home from April 2024 to the end of March 2025:

1,447

...complaints were made (up 17% from 1,210 in the previous year)

80%

...of complaints were resolved at Stage 1, compared to 86% the previous year.

79%

...of complaints were resolved within Housing Ombudsman timescales, a 38% improvement compared to the previous year, where 41% of complaints were responded to within Housing Ombudsman timescales.

61%

...of complaints were about our repairs service.

Our compensation figures for April 2024 to the end of March 2025:

When we get things wrong and this has had an impact on the customer, we do compensate customers.

We follow the Housing Ombudsman’s guide to compensation when making decisions on compensation.

£84,000

...is the amount we paid out in compensation from April 2024 to March 2025. This is compared to £46,000 in the previous year.

This year, we've made changes to how we handle complaints to improve our response to them.

Here are some examples of things we've done:

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We've created a specialised complaints team, and we’re also currently expanding this to deal promptly with complaints.

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We now have assigned a member responsible for complaints (MRC) to lead on customer feedback.

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We’ve introduced our complaints handling steering group to oversee complaints and help to improve our performance.

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We’ve updated our Complaints and Feedback Policy and procedures in line with the Housing Ombudsman code.

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We’re improving our communications with customers to help reduce complaints.

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A new Compensation Policy has been developed with our customers.

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We're working with senior managers to reduce service failure and increase customer experience.

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We’re sharing what we’ve got wrong with colleagues so that we all learn from it.

Plus, we've introduced our Complaints Service Improvement Report so that we can use insight from complaints to improve our services.

Many of the improvements we've made this year will help us improve how we handle complaints, and how we prevent similar things from happening in the future.

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We’re working with our customers to improve the way we handle complaints:

This includes getting customers who have recently been through our complaints process involved.

If we want to improve our approach, we need to listen and learn from the experiences of customers who have complained.

It's also nice to hear from you when we have got it right:

270

...compliments received, with 69% related to our repairs service.

We continue to work with members of our Resident Voices Channel and Customer Scrutiny Panels to ensure we hear our customers voices and use them to improve our approach to customer service.