Compliments, Complaints and Suggestions | Berneslai Homes

Article: Compliments, Complaints and Suggestions

Your Comments Count

Your comments, good or bad, can help us to improve our services. If you have a problem or an idea, we can only act on it if you tell us about it.

If you have a compliment, complaint or a suggestion please contact us.  

You can visit the Your Comments Count Customer Satisfaction Results. 

We also have a Customer Champion whose job is to listen to your views and ideas and make sure that they are taken into account by the Board and staff when making decisions about day to day service delivery and future changes to the service. 

To see how we are meeting the national standards set by the Tenant Services Authority please visit our Challenge Card performance section.

How do you contact us? 

You can contact the Customer Services team in any of the following ways.

• Filling in and returning one of our Your comments count forms.
• Visiting your local Barnsley Connects Office.
• Phoning us on Tel: 01226 775555. 
• Writing to us at Customer Services, PO Box 627, Barnsley, S70 9FZ. 
• Emailing us at CustomerServices@berneslaihomes.co.uk .

Compliments - Please tell us if you want to pass on a compliment or say thanks to our staff. It is nice to know that we are doing a good job. We can also learn from and build on the good things. We pass on any compliments we receive to the relevant staff and their manager. We will send you a letter thanking you for your compliment, and our Chief Executive will write to the member of staff you are complimenting.  Email here to pass on a compliment.

Suggestions - We welcome your suggestions. You are in the best position to tell us how we can improve our service. We will confirm we have received your suggestion. We consider all suggestions and will contact you to give you feedback. Email here to make a suggestion.

Complaints - We welcome complaints. Not only can we try to sort your problem out, but if needed, we can improve our services and change how we do things in the future. Email here to register a complaint.

Informal complaints

If you have a complaint, it is best to contact the office or team concerned.  We call this an informal complaint.  They should be able to sort out your complaint straight away. If they can't, they will agree with you when they will be able to sort the problem out.

If you have already complained informally, and your problem has not been sorted out, you can contact the Customer Services Team to register a stage 1 formal complaint.

Stage 1 complaint

The Customer Services Team will register your complaint and pass it to the manager of the service you are complaining about to investigate. We will write to you within 5 days of receiving your complaint to tell you:

• that we have got your complaint;
• who is dealing with your complaint;
• how you can contact the person dealing with your complaint; and
• when you will receive a response.

 We will then investigate your complaint and reply to you within 10 working days. If you are unhappy with this response, you can ask for your complaint to be reviewed by the Customer Services Team at stage 2 of our procedure.

Stage 2 complaint

The Customer Services Team will investigate your complaint and will:

• review the action taken so far;
• contact you to discuss your complaint and gather any extra information needed;
• contact our staff to gather extra information;
• consider the evidence, and then
• pass the findings to the Director who is responsible for that service who will make a final decision.

 We will then respond to you in writing. Our target for responding to stage 2 complaints is 15 working days. If you remain unhappy after receiving this response, you may then wish to contact the Local Government Ombudsman.

Local Government Ombudsman

You can complain to the Local Government Ombudsman, However, they will only investigate your complaint if you have given us the chance to consider your complaint through our own complaints procedure. You can contact the ombudsman direct at:

Beverley House
17 Shipton Road
York
YO30 5FZ
Phone: 01904 380200

Email: enquiries.york@lgo.org.uk

You can get leaflets about the Ombudsman from any Barnsley Connects office.

 Helplines

Contact your local Barnsley Connects Office on 01226 775555.  Barnsley Connects are open Monday to Friday 9.00am to 5.00pm. 

If you have a repair then please contact the Repairs Hotline on 01226 787878. See the Reporting a Repair section of the website.  

How you can help us?

The customer can help by providing the following information when making a complaint:

•  your name
• your address
• your phone number
• when the problem happened
• brief details of the problem
• who was involved; and
• what you would like to happen as a result of your complaint.

 Legislation

 Data Protection Act

 Response Times/Next Steps

When we've recieved your complaint, we'll write to you and tell you who is looking into things for you and how to contact them.

We'll respond to stage 1 complaints within 10 working days, and stage 2 complaints within 15 working days.