Feedback and Complaints

At Stonewall Housing we pride ourselves on our professionalism and the level of service we provide. But we don’t get it right all the time and occasionally things can go wrong. We welcome all forms of feedback including complaints as they allow us to learn from our successes and mistakes, and ultimately improve our service.

If you would like to give us any feedback, please email us at info@stonewallhousing.org or call us on 0207 359 6242.

We have a comprehensive procedure for dealing with complaints. Click here to read it in full or follow our guide below if you would like to make a complaint against the organisation or a member of our staff…

Complaints Procedure Summary

Stonewall Housing aims to provide high quality supported housing and housing advice to our service users. If we fail to do this we want to know about it. Our complaints procedure sets out how a service user can make a complaint to Stonewall Housing and how we will respond to complaints.

A complaint is defined as an expression of dissatisfaction made by a service user about Stonewall Housing’s services. Complaints are likely to be in one or more of the following areas:

dissatisfaction with our service;
disputes between the service user and the organisation regarding policy, procedures or activities;
discourtesy or unhelpfulness on the part of staff;
breaches of the equal opportunities policy.

The person affected can complain if we:

fail to do something we should;
do something wrong or to a poor standard;
treat someone unfairly.

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Aim of the Procedure

Stonewall Housing aims to provide a good quality service. We value complaints as an extremely useful form of feedback on the way we deliver our service, as well as a means of resolving individual service users’ grievances. Wherever possible staff are expected to deal with a concern at the point of it being reported before it escalates into a formal complaint.

When dealing with complaints the organisation’s aims are to ensure that:

staff know how to respond effectively to service user dissatisfaction so that formal complaints are minimised;
staff know how to assist service users who wish to make a formal complaint;
staff know how to assist service users who wish to make an informal complaint.

We aim, wherever possible, to resolve the problem to the service user’s satisfaction, quickly and sensitively. This may not be possible, however, if resolving a problem to the service user’s satisfaction might in some way compromise or conflict with Stonewall Housing’s policies or procedures. We also undertake to learn from the experiences of our service users and where necessary make changes to our policies and procedures.

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How to use the Complaints Procedure

If you wish to make a formal complaint you can do this by letter, email, fax or phone. If you make the complaint by phone a member of staff who is not involved in your complaint will fill in the complaint form with you over the phone, however it is preferable that you make your complaint in writing to us.

All complaints should be sent to the Director of Stonewall Housing. S/he will write to let you know that your complaint has been received within 3 days, and then will pass your complaint on to be investigated by the appropriate manager in the organisation.

The person carrying out the investigation may contact you to discuss your complaint in more detail and may arrange to meet with you. They will complete the investigation and write to you within 3 weeks to let you know the result of your complaint.

If you are not happy with the result of your complaint you can proceed to Stage Two of the Complaints Procedure by contacting the Director within 10 working days. You need to state clearly why you are not satisfied with the outcome of your complaint. The Director will then investigate your complaint and will reply to you within 15 working days.

Again if you are not happy with the result of the Stage Two investigation and outcome you can move to Stage Three. At this stage a Complaints Panel made up of three Stonewall Housing Management Committee members will consider your complaint. The panel will hold a hearing to go over the complaint, and you will be invited to attend this to put your case. You may bring a friend or supporter with you to the hearing. The panel will make a final decision on your complaint.

If you are a Stonewall Housing tenant and wish to complain further you can complain to the Housing Association who own the house where you live if the complaint relates to a housing management issue, and you also have the right to complain to the Independent Housing Ombudsman.

If you are an Advice Service client and wish to complain further you can go to the Telephone Helplines Association or Advice UK. Stonewall Housing is a member of both these organisations and as such agrees to provide services of an agreed quality standard.

Click here to read our Complaints Policy in full.

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