Plymouth Community Homes (PCH) is expected to comply with the Housing Ombudsman Service Complaint Handling Code
This includes producing an annual complaints performance and service improvement report for submission to the governing body, a response from the governing body and a self-assessment which demonstrates compliance with the code.
The Housing Ombudsman expects landlords to carry out regular self-assessment against the Code which forms part of the annual complaints performance and service improvement report. Our self-assessment sets out how appropriate action is taken to ensure our complaint handling is in line with the Code and how we learn from customer feedback.
2025 Governing Body Response
Maja Jorgensen, Board Member and Chair of the Customer Focus Committee at Plymouth Community Homes, said:
“At Plymouth Community Homes, we value every piece of feedback, whether praise or constructive criticism, as an opportunity to learn and improve. By actively listening to our residents and learning from their experiences, we’re committed to transforming insights into meaningful improvements that make a real difference across our organisation.
“The annual complaints performance and service improvement report, along with our self-assessment, was presented to and approved by the Customer Focus Committee on 25 July 2025. The reports have been thoroughly reviewed and challenged by the Customer Focus Committee and we’re confident that it accurately reflects our approach to complaint handling and demonstrates our full alignment with the Housing Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code.
“We recognise that we are on a journey with complaint handling and are always looking to evolve this further. Looking ahead to 2025–26, we’re excited about the upcoming changes that will help us to deliver even better services for our residents.”
2024-2025 highlights:
- Regular, in-depth reviews of complaint trends and how they’re handled, with a strong focus on using insights to enhance services.
- Ongoing collaboration between the member responsible for complaints and officers to foster a constructive and responsive complaints culture.
- Continued delivery of quarterly tenant satisfaction reports, alongside expanded customer insight reporting to guide strategic improvements.
- We have strengthened the involvement of our resident co-optees to the Customer Focus Committee by providing tailored support, training and opportunities for development. Lived experience and insights will continue to shape the committee’s priorities, ensuring decisions reflect the needs and perspectives of our communities.
2024 Governing Body Response
Maja Jorgensen, Board Member and Chair of the Customer Focus Committee at Plymouth Community Homes, said:
“Plymouth Community Homes is committed to living by our values: Care, Respect, Listen, Do the right thing, and nowhere more so than when something isn’t right for our residents. We welcome feedback from residents, whether complaints or compliments, and are committed to being a learning organisation. We therefore have procedures in place to ensure that learning from what could have been better informs continuous improvement across the organisation.
This year the Board has:
- Received and scrutinised quarterly updates on the volume, nature and handling of complaints, and the actions taken to improve services basing on insights
- Appointed a Member Responsible for Complaints, who meets regularly with officers to review complaints and support a positive complaints handling culture
- Implemented an updated complaints handling policy informed by Ombudsman expectations and customer input
- Continued to receive quarterly tenant satisfaction measures reports and developed extended customer insights reporting to inform organisational improvements
- Recruited a further three Customer Focus Committee resident co-optees, and now have the full complement of five co-optees on this committee
- “The Board of Plymouth Community Homes confirms that the annual complaint performance and service improvement report and self-assessment has been reviewed, scrutinised and robustly challenged through both Board and Customer Focus Committee. The Board is satisfied that the report reflects our organisation’s approach and complaints handling delivery and demonstrates our compliance with the Housing Ombudsman’s Complaints Handling Code.”
