Make a complaint: Scotland

We know that sometimes things can go wrong and that you may become dissatisfied with our services.

Our aim is to ensure we handle your complaint in a prompt, polite and fair way, by working with you to find a resolution as soon as possible. Once we know something has gone wrong, we’ll work with you to put it right.

We have fully adopted the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman’s model complaint handling procedure.

How to make a complaint

It is easy to make a complaint about our service. We have a dedicated team of Customer Resolution Coordinators, who handle complaints.

Submit a complaint through the Customer Portal

We have a dedicated team of Customer Resolution Coordinators, who handle complaints. They can work closely with your local team, to find out what happened and try to reach a resolution for you.

To make a complaint you can:

Submit a complaint through the Customer Portal
Call us: 0131 657 0600
tell us in person
send your complaint in writing to:

Complaints Team
Places for People
PO Box 2070
Preston
PR5 9BY

When you contact us, please tell us:

your full name, address and contact number(s)
what happened, when it happened and how it affected you
what you think we should do to put things right

Supporting you to make a complaint

We are committed to equality and accessibility and are happy to assist you in submitting a complaint. You can nominate a Places for People Scotland Colleague to make a complaint on your behalf or represent you during the complaints process.

You may wish to have an external advocate to support you with a complaint. This would be someone who does not work for Places for People who contacts us on your behalf regarding making a complaint or discussing the progress of it.

If you are looking to have someone support you during the complaints process, please speak to your Community Housing Manager who will be able to support you with this request.

We can provide you with details of advocacy services. We can also make any reasonable adjustments you may need, for example, by communicating with you in a certain way.

You can also ask a friend or relative to help you make a complaint.

What happens next

In line with the Scottish Public Services Model Complaint Handling Procedures, we support the earliest resolution of complaints. A member of our complaint handling team will triage your complaint to make sure we understand what went wrong, and the resolution you are looking for. They will try to resolve it within 5 working days or less at Stage 1. If the issue is more complex, or you remain dissatisfied, it’s easy to make a complaint at Stage 2.

View our full complaints procedure.

Is your complaint about noise nuisance or anti-social behaviour?

To log a report of nuisance or anti-social behaviour, please sign into your online account and complete the relevant form. Alternatively, you can contact our Customer Service Centre.

If your complaint is about our service and how we handled any reports of nuisance or anti-social behaviour you reported, you can make a complaint in the usual way.

Contact details for the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman

Scottish Public Services Ombudsman
Bridgeside House
99 McDonald Road
Edinburgh
EH7 4NS

Freephone: 0800 377 7330.
Webform: https://www.spso.org.uk/contact-form

Complaints performance

We value complaints and use the information from them to learn lessons and make changes to improve our services.

We actively monitor our complaints and report to our Board Members on a quarterly basis and to the Scottish Housing Regulator.

Sharing your details

We may share your name and contact details with In House Research, an external company who we have appointed to carry out surveys so that we can obtain feedback from you on our complaints service. The appointed company will work on our behalf and will never use your information for any other purposes.

Service improvements

In addition to developing this new way of working, we have logged and tracked the following service improvements:

Priority and trade feedback

Feedback showed that some repairs were being assigned the wrong priority level or trade.

We introduced a new feature in the Field Service App that allows operatives to flag these issues when they spot them.

This helps improve repair diagnosis, reduce delays and repeat visits, and ensures jobs are assigned to the right person first time.

Duplicate repair prevention

Feedback showed that duplicate repairs were sometimes being raised, leading to unnecessary visits and wasted time.

We introduced a new feature that shows existing open repairs when booking a job, helping to prevent duplicates.

This reduces avoidable appointments and improves the Customer experience by cutting down on duplicate bookings.

Repair triage review

Feedback from Customers and our Customer Contact Centre highlighted opportunities to improve how repairs were diagnosed and assigned.

We reviewed our processes and introduced more than 200 additional pathways to improve trade selection and repair allocation.

This helps ensure repairs are diagnosed more accurately, assigned to the right operative first time, and reduces incorrect appointments.

2-way SMS Customer communication

Feedback showed that Customers wanted better communication about their appointments.

We introduced automated two-way SMS messages, allowing Customers to confirm, reschedule or cancel appointments quickly and easily.

This gives customers more flexibility and helps them stay informed and engaged throughout the process.

Appointment optimisation

A review of our operations identified opportunities to improve appointment scheduling and diary management.

We improved the way repair appointments are planned and scheduled to make better use of available resources.

This has helped reduce waiting times, cut down on travel, and make better use of operative capacity.

Landlord Gas Safety Record (LGSR) completion during repair visits

Analysis identified opportunities to complete gas safety checks during existing repair appointments.

We enabled Landlord Gas Safety Records to be completed during eligible repair visits.

This reduces the need for repeat visits, makes things more convenient for Customers, and improves efficiency.

Field service app

Feedback from operatives highlighted opportunities to make field-based processes simpler and easier to use.

We introduced a redesigned mobile app that makes it quicker and easier for operatives to access and record information while on site.

This reduces administrative tasks, improves the quality and consistency of information captured, and gives operatives more time to focus on Customers.

Landlord Gas Safety Record (LGSR) redesign

A review of the LGSR process identified opportunities to make it quicker and easier for frontline Colleagues.

We redesigned the LGSR workflow in the Field Service App, reducing the number of screens, clicks and repeated tasks needed to complete a gas safety inspection.

This reduced the time required to complete inspections by 13.5%, creating more capacity to carry out additional work for Customers while maintaining safety and compliance standards.