Complaints

Our aim is to ensure that you receive a high standard of service from us at all times. However, sometimes things do go wrong or we make mistakes, or our services, or the work of our contractors, isn't up to an acceptable standard - and you may wish to make a complaint.

✔️We really want to hear from you so that we have the opportunity to put things right when they go wrong

✔️We’ll learn from any complaints we receive to help improve our services.

✔️Our complaints process allows us to deal with any complaints quickly, fairly and effectively.

✔️If you make a complaint, you will not receive any discrimination or a lesser service as a result.

Check out our complaints procedure below and how you can make a complaint. You can also learn more about we use feedback to improve our services.

What is a complaint?

An expression of dissatisfaction, however made, about the standard of service, actions or lack of action by Connexus, its own staff, or those acting on its behalf, affecting a resident or group of residents.

Who is a customer?

A customer is anyone who requests or receives a service from Connexus or any of its subsidiaries.

We aim to put things right that have gone wrong quickly, fairly and effectively.

We will:

• Give you the choice to make a complaint if you express dissatisfaction
• Acknowledge when things have gone wrong and make arrangements to put things right at the earliest opportunity, not just when a complaint is raised.
• Allow complaints, in any format through which we communicate with customers, about issues that have occurred within the last 12 months
• Handle complaints submitted via a non-legal third party or representative in the same way as one received directly from a customer, once we have confirmation that they are acting on a customer’s behalf
• View complaints positively
• Be fair and impartial when investigating a complaint and be clear how we have reached any decision
• Provide an opportunity for you to appeal a decision
• Direct the complaint to the appropriate organisation if the complaint relates to matters, not within the responsibility of the Connexus Group
• We believe in providing equal opportunities for all by ensuring our customers’ needs are recognised and met. Where possible, we will make reasonable adjustments to ensure residents can access our services. To find out more, check our reasonable adjustments policy.

We hope that in most cases when we get it wrong, once we are told, our colleagues can put it right quickly via a Service Request. Where we cannot, and you are unhappy with our service, Connexus has a two-stage complaint process with specified timescales in which to respond:

• Complaint – Stage 1: 10 working days from the acknowledgment date
• Review – Stage 2: 20 working days from the acknowledgment date

There are occasions when we will not accept a formal complaint, such as:

• If the matter occurred more than 12 months ago
• When the matter is best dealt with under a different policy e.g. a complaint about a neighbour (Anti-Social Behaviour policy)
• Where there is an allegation of illegal or criminal wrongdoing which should be dealt with through police/courts, or allegations of violence/intimidation/harassment or theft. In these cases we may refer to other appropriate organisations in conjunction with our HR team.
• Where Connexus has already provided a complaint response to the issue and what is being reported is the same, or a very similar issue, to which the response would be the same.
• Where legal proceedings have started. This is defined as details of the claim, such as the Claim Form and Particulars of Claim, having been filed at court
• If we tell you that we will not accept a complaint, we will explain why in writing and advise you of your right to challenge this decision by taking your complaint to the appropriate Ombudsman, if applicable.

When you contact us with a request to take action to put something right, we will try and resolve the issue straight away by agreeing what we will do and when. We will log your concerns on our database so it is recorded properly and give you the choice to make a complaint.

When you make a complaint, a manager will aim to contact you within 3 working days to confirm the reasons for your complaint and to discuss the outcomes you are seeking. We will send you an acknowledgement outlining your complaint and the outcomes sought in writing within 5 working days.

The manager will investigate the matters raised and then contact you to discuss the outcome of our investigations with you before we send you a full written response. This will be within 10 working days of the acknowledgement. 

If we need more time to investigate, we will contact you to advise you of a revised response date. We will aim to not delay the response longer than a further 10 working days.

We’ll keep a record of our contact with you and any correspondence, reports and surveys related to your complaint in our database.

If we conclude our investigation into your complaint and you are not happy with the outcome, you can ask for a Review of your complaint.

You can also contact the Housing Ombudsman at any time to help you when making a complaint to us. Their details are in the Housing Ombudsman Service section below.

The review is the final stage of our complaints procedure.

We will contact you within the first 3 days of the Review request to understand what you feel has gone wrong and why you feel Connexus has not resolved your complaint. Should you choose not to tell us, we will base the review on your initial complaint and how we responded. We will send a written acknowledgement of the Review within 5 working days.

The Complaints Manager will review all the information gathered and consider whether the original investigation was thorough and demonstrates a full understanding of the complaint and answers all points raised in your original complaint.

They will also consider whether the notes and evidence recorded support the proposed resolution and whether the resolution proposed fully remedies any failure in service.

At this stage, we will invite one of our involved customers to work directly with us to provide an independent view of the issues you have raised. This helps us to ensure that we are fully considering all parties' perspectives. If you would rather that an involved customer did not take part in the review stage, you have the right to decline this.

The Complaints Manager will discuss their findings with the Head of Service, or Director, and agree the outcome and any further proposed resolutions. This will also ensure that any learning from the Review can be taken back to the appropriate teams. The Complaints Manager will call you to discuss their findings with you in order that you have a chance to respond. They will then confirm the outcome in writing within 20 working days of the acknowledgement, unless we have advised you that we need to extend this timescale. This would usually be by no more than 20 working days unless there is a genuine reason to do so.

If upon conclusion of our Review of your complaint, you do not feel that Connexus has resolved your complaint satisfactorily, you have the right to refer your complaint to the Housing Ombudsman Service (details below) or where applicable to the relevant regulatory authority. We will confirm this in our response.

We’ll keep a record of our contact with you and any correspondence, reports and surveys related to your complaint in our database.

You can contact the Housing Ombudsman directly.

They will encourage you to make a complaint direct to your landlord, but you can contact them at any time as they can help you make your complaint.

If at the end of our complaint process, you feel that we have not resolved your complaint, you can complain to the Housing Ombudsman. This should be within 12 months of reaching the end of our complaints process.

The Housing Ombudsman will investigate how we have handled your complaint and if the Ombudsman feels we’ve done something wrong, they will decide what needs to be done to put things right.

Once the Housing Ombudsman have started their investigation, we will not try to resolve your complaint directly with you, unless the Ombudsman asks us to.

As part of the Housing Ombudsman's complaint handling code, all providers of social housing are required to publish a self-assessment annually. The below document explains how Connexus meets the code and gives examples of learning and how customer feedback is used to improve our service.