More tenants are complaining about Brighton and Hove City Council housing services, according to a new report.
Initial complaints have gone up to more than 1,000. The number of unresolved matters known as “stage one” and “stage two” complaints have also gone up, with more stage two complaints upheld.
At a meeting yesterday (Tuesday 10 November) Labour councillor Theresa Mackey raised concerns about the increases – and about the low level of satisfaction with complaint handling.
She welcomed the increase in the overall satisfaction rate with the housing team – up from 67 per cent to 71 per cent in a survey of more than a thousand tenants.
But complaint handling had a satisfaction rate of 28.3 per cent, according to the council’s Housing Tenant Satisfaction Annual Report.
Councillor Mackey said: “What is the main reason you might suggest that tenants are having to escalate their complaints?
“Will you report back as to whether the promised remedies are actually completed?”
Labour councillor Gill Williams, the council’s cabinet member for housing, said that tenants were being encouraged to share their complaints.
They were also being given more information about their rights so that they were better able to escalate matters if they felt the need.
Councillor Williams said: “It helps us understand what people are worried about – I don’t want people to be, ‘oh, I don’t like to complain.’
“Tell us what’s wrong. Tell us why you don’t like something. If you’re not happy with our response, tell us again – why not?”
At the meeting, at Hove Town Hall, councillors were told that 1,012 tenants complained about housing services in 2025-26, up from 838 in the year before.
Harry Williams, the council’s director of housing people services, said that stage two complaints went up from 131 to 195.
He told the council’s People Overview and Scrutiny Committee that almost half the complaints (46 per cent) were upheld compared with just over a third (35 per cent) the year before – and 7 per cent were partly upheld.
Most complaints were about the condition of a tenant’s home – just under 600 – while there were 34 complaints about anti-social behaviour, double the 17 in the previous year.
The council got better at responding promptly, replying to more than three-quarters of stage one complaints and more than four-fifths of stage two complaints within the relevant timescale.
Mr Williams said: “We are working and are compliant with the Housing Ombudsman complaint handling code which sets out certain criteria about making sure we’re clear with tenants about how to escalate their complaints.”
He said: “That increase in escalation talks to the work that we’ve been doing to make sure people are really clear about their rights of complaint handling and how they can escalate them to stage two if they’re not happy with the stage one response.”
He added that the council looked at complaints and other feedback to understand what people were saying, with a view to improving the service.
