If you are unhappy with the service you have received, we want to know.

We are committed to providing you with a high-quality service. Your feedback helps us to better understand how we are performing and where we need to improve.  

What is a complaint?

A complaint is defined as an expression of dissatisfaction, however made about the standard of service, actions or lack of action by the organisation, its own staff or those acting on our behalf, affecting an individual, resident or group of residents.

We will ensure we respond quickly to complaints and make improvements where required.

All complaints will be monitored to ensure that we are being fair and transparent, and we learn from them.

The Housing Ombudsman can be contacted for advice and information at any point during the complaint process.

How to make a complaint

We want to make it as easy as possible to make a complaint about our services and they can be made in any of the following ways?

• In person
• In writing
• By telephone
• By email on complaints@northstarhg.co.uk
• Via our website, northstarhg.co.uk  click here
• Through another person, perhaps an advocate, social worker, solicitor, etc.
• Through comments made on surveys
• Through comments on social media such as Facebook, Twitter etc.

We will deal with anonymous complaints, comments and compliments in the same way.

We have a simple complaints process involving just two stages.

Once we have received your complaint, we will write to you within two working days providing you with details of who will be looking into the complaint and when you should receive a response by.

Stage One

A stage one complaint will be dealt with by a manager who will contact you and discuss how the complaint can be resolved.

We aim to provide a full written response within 10 working days.

Stage Two

If you are not happy with the outcome of stage one, you can ask for a review on how the complaint has been handled. At stage two it will be dealt with by a senior manager or director who will endeavour to resolve the complaint in 10 working days.

If we are unable to resolve the complaint in these timescales, we will contact you in writing on what we are intending to do to resolve the complaint and by when.

When we are writing to you, we will provide information on how the complaint can be escalated if you remain dis-satisfied.

Closing Complaints

We will write to you and let you know when we consider the complaint closed, giving you the opportunity to provide further feedback or to escalate the complaint accordingly. We will provide timescales for this in the letter.

If you are not satisfied after stage two of our complaints procedure, you are able to refer your complaint to the Housing Ombudsman.

Exclusions

 A complaint regarding a breach of tenancy such as anti social behaviour will not be regarded as a complaint unless the complaint is about our handling of the issue.

We will not accept the following complaints:

• Where the matter is subject to legal proceedings
• Where the complainant is acting unreasonably
• Where the service failure occurred more than six months prior
• Where the problem is a recurring issue and we are satisfied we have previously resolved the issue

If we decide not to accept your complaint, we will write to you and explain why and you will have the right to challenge this decision by referring the matter to the Housing Ombudsman.

The Housing Ombudsman

North Star is a member of the Housing Ombudsman service. This is a free, independent complaint resolution service. The Housing Ombudsman can be contacted for advice and information at any point during the complaint process. However, the Housing Ombudsman service can only review your complaint once you have completed  both stages of North Star’s Complaints process.

Each year, we are required to complete and publish a self-assessment of our procedures against the Housing Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code. A copy of our latest assessment is available below to download.

Further reading

North Star’s Complaints, Comments and Compliments Policy can be viewed below along with related policies and outcome of complaints reviews.