Season 3, episode 3 – October 2023

Polly Cox Sector Learning and Development Manager

Hello and welcome to our podcast on the Member Responsible for Complaints. My name is Polly Cox. I'm the Sector Learning and Development Manager here at the Housing Ombudsman Service and today I'll be chatting to Andrea Keenoy, our Chief Operating Officer, about this important role. Hello, Andrea.

Andrea Keenoy, Chief Operating Officer

Hi, Polly, nice to be with you today.

Polly Cox Sector Learning and Development Manager

That's great. we're talking about things Member Responsible Complaints. Let's start off with what is the role of the Member Responsible for Complaints and why is it so important?

Andrea Keenoy, Chief Operating Officer

The role was introduced in March 2022 when we published our Strengthens Complaint handling code and we see the role of Member Responsible for Complaints as important, as it takes the lead in in driving and maintaining a positive complaint handling culture across an organisation.

Complaints and how they're handled, can tell you so much about an organisation and provide early warnings when things are going wrong. So, it's important to ensure that organisations really do dedicate time to looking at these and understanding their root causes and taking action in response. And so, we see the role as embodying that positive complaint handling culture and championing complaints at governing body level by just getting complaints talked about the board or relevant committee and holding executives to account for delivering the changes to services that come from that understanding.

Polly Cox Sector Learning and Development Manager

That's great. Who is the MRC? You've just mentioned governing body. How does that fit in?

Andrea Keenoy, Chief Operating Officer

That's right. It has to be a role where the post holder can be in a position to really influence the organisations culture and set the right tone at the top. Given those requirements the member responsible for complaints does need to be a member of the organisations governing body and so either a board member in a housing association or an elected member in a council. But I would stress it's not a solo endeavour. They should really be supported by their fellow board members or elected members and relevant departments, such as the complaints handling team as well in carrying out their role.

Polly Cox Sector Learning and Development Manager

What exactly do you expect the MRC to do?

Andrea Keenoy, Chief Operating Officer

I would break the kind of nitty gritty of the roll down into three key but equally important areas and those are governance, compliance and learning. Taking governance first. Broadly, it's about, as I've been mentioning, being that champion of complaints and creating that positive complaint handling culture that I've mentioned already by just getting complaints on the agenda at governing body meetings and, and really promoting the value of the learning that comes from those.

I think, within that sort of government governance aspect as well, there's opportunities to link the role with other assurance activities across an organisation. For example, working with the chair of the audit committee to raise any potential risks that come out of complaints handling and learning around service delivery for consideration as to whether they need to be monitored a corporate level or thinking about, you know, are there any activities you want to therefore include in the forwards from internal audit programme? And on the compliance side, I would say it's partly about kicking the tyres a little bit by engaging more widely across the organisation. Testing whether proactive complaint handling really is working in practise, receiving regular complaint data, looking at some examples of complaint handling, communication with residents to make sure it's really is empathetic and effective and appropriate. And perhaps also sort of checking in with some residents who've made complaints to see what their views. No.

It is also about tracking whether executives are really delivering on previously agreed actions to improve services that have come out from learning from complaints really strongly encouraged. As well as part of that sort of compliance tracking, that board committee level. There's tracking of timely compliance with ombudsman's orders where there's been a finding of severe maladministration. And also if we've done a wider learning report or a paragraph 49, as we call the report on an, on an organisation looking at progress against the recommendations made in that finally learning. Sorry, Polly.

The other bit of the role is, is it's really about using all of the above to support executives and fellow governing body members in drawing out the learning that comes from those complaints and that the organisations received to just help think about where and how services could be improved. And then sort of moving on from that. It's about helping the executives to really shape some appropriate responses to that, learning that, you know, not only benefit residents but benefit the organisation and the staff as well. And then as I've mentioned, that sort of holding to account, making sure that those service improvements really do get delivered at the end of the day.

Polly Cox Sector Learning and Development Manager

Brilliant. Thank you very much. So how can the MRC use their position to drive a culture shift or a positive complaint handling culture?

Andrea Keenoy, Chief Operating Officer

Holding the position that that they do the member responsible complaints should be well placed to set the tone at the top and drive the culture and mindset. I think the key ways of doing that, using their position to influence fellow board or elected members, challenging and supporting executives and having those wider relationships across the organisation that really allowed them to be plugged into what's happening on the ground, using that knowledge to inform the conversations that they then bring back to the governing body.

Polly Cox Sector Learning and Development Manager

Leading on from that, what is it that the Housing Ombudsman is looking for in that MRC role?

Andrea Keenoy, Chief Operating Officer

Good question. Personally, I'd like to see someone who's really passionate about learning and can see the potential that really getting underneath the skin of complaints can make to improving service delivery in their organisation. I think that service delivery benefits both residents and their staff as well.

Polly Cox Sector Learning and Development Manager

Finally, how engaged in that self-assessment should the MRC be?

Andrea Keenoy, Chief Operating Officer

The self-assessment itself should be completed by the complaints team and signed off at a senior executive level as an accurate and complete document. it's absolutely not the role of the member responsible for complaints to be involved in the detail of that. But where they can add real value to the process is in ensuring their following governing body members. What's said in the assessment aligns with information that they've seen either at previous meetings or gathered through their interactions with staff from across the organisation and through any conversations they've had with residents as well. To really probe what's reported in the self-assessment and actually doing that as an exercise.