In this section

I am a council tenant

Please note: This service applies to only Redditch Borough Council Tenants

If you are not a tenant, or your complaint is regarding a housing transfer application then please use this link to the Corporate Complaints web page. Compliments and Complaints

Housing Services at Redditch Borough Council want to ensure our service users are satisfied with the services they receive from us.

We therefore welcome and actively encourage residents, service users and their representatives, elected members, to engage with us when things go wrong, you have a suggestion about ways we could improve or are satisfied with the services you have received.

We believe that dealing effectively and transparently with all such feedback is essential to providing good services, by continuously learning, and improving what and how we do things.

What is service request

This is where you will be unhappy with a situation that you want to have put right. For example, you may be unhappy with:

  • A situation with your bin stores and rubbish
  • A situation with your neighbours, or in your neighbourhood.
  • You've been sent a letter about your rent arrears
  • The condition of your property, such as cold, condensation, damp, and mould.

You can take steps to manage condensation, which causes black mould to appear.

Please follow the link for more advice: Managing condensation

At this stage, these are not formal complaints, you are asking us to do something about a situation and / or deliver a service to you. Only if we have not done as we have described in the section “what is a complaint” does it become an acceptable complaint.

To request a service please contact us using contact detail links below

What is a complaint

You may want to tell us that you are dissatisfied about something, the standard of service you have received, actions, or lack of action, by the Housing Service, its staff, or those acting on its behalf (such as a partner or contractor), which has affected you, or a group, and that requires us to respond.

A complaint could be about things like:

  • We've significantly delayed or failed to deliver a service to you.
  • Delivering a poor quality, or substandard level of service to you.
  • We have made a mistake.
  • We haven't listened to you properly.
  • We haven't followed our processes or policies.
  • We have not met our legal or regulatory obligations.
  • We have not delivered a commitment or promise to you.
  • Our staff have been rude, inappropriate, or unprofessional towards you.

They certainly can.

Your Elected members (Local Councillor or MP) are your representatives, and we welcome their engagement.

We will not need your permission to talk to your elected representative about you and your complaint or situation, but we will need your permission to talk to anyone else who is trying to represent you, such as someone from the CAB, or a friend or relative, for example. This is to safeguard you and protect your personal information.

If you are to grant permission for someone to represent you, the person will need to be aware of the situation and proved a letter of authority without it, we will note able to progress with your complaint.

 

If expressing a complaint or compliment in person or over the phone, tell the officer that you are complaining, what it is about and ask the officer to submit the compliant on your behalf. If you need assistance to access these services, then please ask.

If you make a complaint or pay us a compliment, please give us as much detail as possible about the service including dates, times and names of the people you dealt with if known. If making a complaint, please also let us know what you would like us to do to put things right.

If you are making a complaint for someone else, you will need their permission first. 

Please note that we are unable to investigate anonymous complaints.

What can you expect from us?

We want to settle all complaints quickly. If you have contacted us with a complaint, there are two stages to our process.

Stage 1 - Formal complaint

  • We aim to acknowledge your complaint within 5 working days.
  • Your complaint will be investigated, and we aim to provide a written response within 10 working days of acknowledgement, either by email or letter.
  • In some circumstances this may take longer. If this is the case, then the assigned officer will notify you as to the expected timescale.
  • If you are unsatisfied with the response, you can ask that your complaint is escalated to Stage 2. Details of how to do this are included in your response letter.

Stage 2 – Complaint appeal 

  • We aim to acknowledge your Stage 2 complaint appeal within 5 working days.
  • A delegated manager who has not previously been involved in your case will review the details of your complaint.
  • We aim to provide a full written response explaining the outcome within 20 working days of acknowledgement.
  • In some circumstances this may take longer. If this is the case, then the assigned officer will notify you as to the expected timescale.

If you are unsatisfied with the response to Stage 2 - complaint appeal, then you have exhausted the complaints process, however you can contact The Housing Ombudsman Service for further recourse.

Housing Ombudsman Service

Housing Ombudsman Service

The Housing Service, which delivers social housing, is regulated by the Housing Ombudsman Service (HOS). You have a right to access the Housing Ombudsman Service throughout your complaint, not only when the landlord’s complaints process is exhausted. However, it is recommended that you read the Housing Services Complaints Standard 2025 to understand when these times are in relation to the complaints process.

The link to key documents can be found below and the link to the HOS for more information and to complain can be found here

Measures

Housing Performance Measures

The Regulator for Social Housing (RSH) has established the ‘Tenant Satisfaction Measures’ (TSM) which places a responsibility on all social housing landlords, in England, to return performance information, so that each provider can be assessed for how well it is providing good quality homes and services

This includes data relating to our performance on handling complaints.

Our performance measures can be found here

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