How to complain

We understand that on occasions you may not be satisfied with the level of service you have received and that complaints will sometimes be made.

We welcome any complaints or feedback and believe that complaints are a valuable tool to understand what customers want from us and where we can improve.

We offer a range of ways to make a complaint:

• Online – by filling in a complaint form
• Email - tellus@fcho.co.uk
• By phone – 0161 393 7117 - our lines are open from 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday and 9am to 4pm Saturday
• By post – FCHO Tellus, First Place, 22 Union Street, Oldham OL1 1BE
• In person – First Place, 22 Union Street, Oldham OL1 1BE, 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday
• Social media - Send us a direct message on Facebook or Twitter (complaints via this channel will be taken offline to ensure privacy and confidentiality)

If you call, write or visit us you will need to provide the following details:

• Your full name and address
• A contact number and or email address
• A description of what has gone wrong and how this has impacted you
• What would you like FCHO to do to put things right and resolve the complaint

We will log a complaint when a customer expresses dissatisfaction about the standard of service, actions, or lack of action.

Our complaints policy has two stages.

Stage One

• Once you have made a complaint, a Customer Excellence Officer will aim to contact you within two working days by phone to discuss your concerns in more detail.
• We will also send a written acknowledgement letter within five working days, confirming what your complaint is about, your desired outcome and when you can expect a response.
• A full investigation of your complaint will be carried out by the Customer Excellence team.
• We will then provide a full written response to your complaint within ten working days. We will address all points raised within your complaint and provide clear reasons for any decisions, referencing the relevant policy, law, and good practice where appropriate.

Stage Two

• If all or part of the complaint is not resolved to the customers satisfaction at stage one, we will progress to Stage Two of our complaints procedure.
• If we are unable to escalate to Stage Two this will be clearly communicated in writing, detailing the reasons we cannot escalate your complaint.
• You must ask us to escalate the complaint to Stage two within 28 days of you receiving your Stage One response.
• A Head of Service or Senior Manager will aim to contact you within two working days by phone to discuss your concerns in more detail.
• We will also send a written acknowledgement letter within five working days, confirming what issues you do not feel have been resolved at Stage One, your desired outcome and when you can expect a response.
• The Stage Two investigation will include a full review of the investigation at Stage One by a Head of Service or Senior Manager.
• We will then provide a full written response to your complaint within 20 working days, we will address all points raised within your complaint and provide clear reasons for any decisions, referencing the relevant policy, law, and good practice where appropriate.

We will ensure we monitor all outstanding actions that we promise to take are completed, such as outstanding repairs.

Your designated Customer Excellence Officer will keep in contact with you to ensure you are kept updated with your complaint and provide you with clear updates on any outstanding actions.

If you feel there’s extra information that will help us resolve your complaint, you can contact us by phone or email, remember to include your reference number.

Phone: 0161 393 7117 - lines are open from 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday and 9am to 4pm Saturday.

When providing a resolution we aim to provide fair and proportionate remedies to complaints where some level of failure has been identified.

These can include but are not limited to:

• Acknowledging where things have gone wrong
• Providing an explanation, assistance, or reasons
• Apologising
• Taking action if there has been a delay
• Reconsidering or changing a decision
• Amending a record
• Providing a financial remedy
• Changing policies, procedures, or practices

If you’re still unhappy you can contact The Housing Ombudsman Service. The Housing Ombudsman Service looks at complaints about registered providers of social housing. The service is free, independent and impartial. You will need to tell them why you remain unhappy with your final response and the outcome you are seeking to resolve the complaint.

They can be contacted on:

Housing Ombudsman Service
PO Box 1484
Unit D
Preston
PR2 0ET

Tel: 0300 111 3000

You can contact The Housing Ombudsman at any point during or after your complaint if you remain dissatisfied with FCHO.

Service requests

A service request is when a customer contacts us to fix something or report an issue, put something right.

Here are examples of what we consider as service requests:

• Reporting a new neighbour dispute
• Reporting antisocial behaviour
• Requesting a new repair that hasn't been reported before
• Enquiring about your rent account

At FCHO, our aim is to address your requests promptly to prevent any issues from escalating. We aim to resolve requests within 48 hours (two working days). However, if we're unable to do so within this timeframe, we will work with you to agree on a plan, which may involve extending the resolution time (up to five working days).

If the customer is dissatisfied with the response to the service request, even if it's still being addressed, a complaint will be raised. In such cases, we will escalate it to Stage One of our complaints process. All service requests are logged in our CRM system to ensure tracking and resolution.

Housing Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code

We have carried out a self-assessment against the Housing Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code. The assessment sets out the areas where we comply with the code and the actions we will be taking to improve how we handle customer feedback.

We are pleased to confirm we are fully compliant with The Housing Ombudsman's Complaint Handling Code.

You can read the report below

• Complaint Handling Code self-assessment 2024
• Complaint Handling Code self-assessment 2023
• Complaint Handling Code self-assessment 2022
• Complaint Handling Code self-assessment 2021
• Complaint Handling Code self-assessment 2020

Policies

• Complaint Policy June 2024
• Unacceptable and Unreasonable Behaviour Policy - November 2021
• Compensation Policy - May 2021

Our complaints handling service standards

What to expect from us when while we aim to resolve your complaint.

Annual Complaints Report

Complaint performance

More information about how we're performing with complaints and how we're learning and improving from complaints.