Complaints and Feedback
Complaints and Feedback
At Local Space, we work hard to provide an excellent service to all our customers. However, there may be times when we do not get it right.
We want to hear your feedback, suggestions and complaints so that we can improve our services.
If you are a Newham Council tenant and your complaint is about a tenancy issue (such as repairs or antisocial behaviour) you will need to contact Newham Council directly to make a complaint. If you are unsure whether to make your complaint to Newham or Local Space, please contact us.
Our complaints process
We welcome feedback and concerns about our services and aim to resolve issues as quickly as possible.
Before making a formal complaint, please get in touch with us. We will try to resolve the issue promptly and informally with a member of Local Space staff where appropriate – this is called a service request. If your issue can be resolved promptly, it will be managed as a service request which will be documented, monitored and reviewed to help us improve our services.
You may choose to make a formal complaint at any time, without first raising a service request. If you do so, your complaint will be logged immediately as a stage one complaint. We will also log a service request as a stage one complaint straight away if, in our view, it should be treated as a formal complaint.
We have a two-stage complaints process:
Stage one
We aim to resolve residents’ concerns during initial contact wherever possible. If an immediate resolution is not possible, we will log this as a stage one complaint.
Your complaint will be referred to a manager to formally investigate. The manager will work with you to agree next steps and keep you updated throughout the investigation. This will normally take no more than 10 working days, and we will always let you know if it will take longer and why.
If you are not satisfied with our stage one response, you have 10 working days to tell us that you wish to take it further. You do not have to explain the reasons for your escalation, although it can be helpful to assist the stage two investigation.
Stage two
If the stage one complaint cannot be resolved, a senior member of staff at Local Space (this will likely be a Head of Service or another Senior Management Team member) will review the complaint and work with you to achieve a satisfactory resolution.
We will acknowledge your request to escalate within five working days, and a response will normally be provided within 20 working days. We will always let you know if it will take longer and why.
Our complaints policy sets out what happens in more detail when you make a complaint to us.
The Housing Ombudsman
If you are still not satisfied with our response at the end of our complaints process, you can ask the Housing Ombudsman Service to investigate your complaint.
The Housing Ombudsman Service does not usually investigate complaints if a customer has not been through a formal complaints process, but they can take steps to encourage landlords and customers to work together to resolve a complaint.
The Housing Ombudsman will investigate your complaint and write to you and us with their decision and any recommendations.
You can submit a complaint to the Housing Ombudsman online, by phone or post:
- Online complaint form.
- 0300 111 3000 (lines are open Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday 9.00am to 5.00pm and on Thursday at 9.00am to 3.30pm).
- Housing Ombudsman Service, PO Box 1484, Unit D, Preston, PR2 0ET (The Housing Ombudsman strongly encourages people to use the online complaint form to avoid delays).
The Housing Ombudsman Service published a new Complaint Handling Code in April 2024, setting out good practice that will allow landlords to respond to complaints effectively and fairly.
We have undertaken a thorough self-assessment and equality impact assessment to ensure that our complaints process is accessible to all our customers. We have also used data analysis and insights from customer complaints to set out actions to improve services to our customers in our complaints performance and service improvement report, which our Board has responded to and set out key areas of improvement. This proactive approach underscores our commitment to transparency, fairness, and inclusivity in addressing any concerns our customers may have.