Selwood Housing recognises the importance of treating all customers fairly, honestly and consistently. Occasionally, a customer’s behaviour can negatively impact our time, resources and the level of service we can offer.
The unacceptable behaviour policy, as recommended by the Housing Ombudsman, is designed to provide a framework that guides us and our customers in how this behaviour is dealt with.
45 customers joined us at different stages to review the first draft of our new unacceptable behaviour policy. The customer complaints forum and those who took part in our focus group and questionnaire provided valuable feedback around clarity and understanding.
What happened next?
All customer feedback has been reviewed and agreed upon. Changes have been made in accordance with their feedback and the policy has been updated.
| You said | We did |
|---|---|
| Having one staff member as a point of contact could put a lot of pressure on them. | We confirmed that all involved staff would be supported throughout the process and a change of personnel can be requested if required. |
| The word ‘advocate’ was raised as a potential for the customer to think they would require a professional to take on this role. Suggestions to change this to a ‘close friend or family member’ or ‘someone you give consent to’. | The wording has been changed from: “Consider an advocate – Informed consent or a third party who can act on behalf of the customer.” To: “An agreement with the customer, that they will nominate a person to act on their behalf.“ |
| All customers agreed that the list of measures we may take to manage unacceptable behaviour were acceptable: 1. A single member of staff as a point of contact. 2. A single method of communication i.e. email only. 3. No further communication on a particular issue. 4. Limited contact i.e. customer can only make contact on a specified day. 5. The customer to agree a nominated person to act on their behalf. 6. Inform the police, local authority or other relevant public body. |
No changes to the policy. |
| When actions have been agreed, the length of time they should remain in place received mixed views, with the majority suggesting 12 months. | We have clearly detailed a 12-month period to manage a customer’s unacceptable behaviour. |
| When informing a customer of the process, contributing factors should be considered. | The following has been added to the ‘informing a customer’ section: “The customer will be asked if there is anything they need or any reasonable adjustments that can be made to support them or if they would like to nominate someone who would communicate with us on their behalf.“ |
| We originally stated that if the customer wanted to appeal against our decision this would be dealt with as a complaint. | The executive team has decided this is not an appropriate route as it would put the customer through a further 2 stages to get it resolved.
You could also have a situation where the head of service or executive member decides to apply the policy, but this is then undone through the complaints process or by a more junior member of staff. Instead, if a customer appeals, they will be asked to confirm their reasons, and this will then be referred to a senior manager for review. |
Download our unacceptable behaviour policy
Unacceptable-behaviour-policy-July-24Download(166.51 KB)
