Interim Assistant Director of Complaints

Interim Assistant Director of Complaints
12-month interim | £520.08 per day Umbrella | Kings Cross | 4 days office / 1 day home

We are currently recruiting for an Interim Assistant Director of Complaints to join a large and established G15 housing association, working at a senior level within its Customer Experience Directorate.

This is a key leadership appointment for an organisation undergoing significant improvement across its complaints service, with the successful candidate responsible for bringing pace, clarity, accountability and sustainable change to the end-to-end complaints journey.

The Role

Reporting to the Customer Experience Director, you will provide strategic and operational leadership across complaints management, service recovery, regulatory compliance, root cause analysis and learning from complaints.

You will lead the stabilisation and transformation of the complaints service, ensuring compliance with the Housing Ombudsman Complaint Handling Code while turning complaint insight and resident feedback into meaningful, organisation-wide service improvements.

Key responsibilities will include:

• Leading the complaints function and associated root cause analysis capability.
• Driving the Complaints Improvement Programme and delivering measurable improvements in performance.
• Leading the implementation and development of a Learning from Complaints Framework.
• Reducing complaint backlogs, inefficiencies and recurring service failures.
• Strengthening performance management, quality assurance, governance and accountability.
• Acting as a senior strategic relationship lead with the Housing Ombudsman Service and relevant regulatory stakeholders.
• Providing strategic advice to Executive and senior leadership teams on complaints, service recovery and customer experience.
• Reporting to Executive Team, Board and governance forums on performance, risk and improvement.
• Developing leadership capability within the complaints function and embedding sustainable improvements beyond the interim assignment.

About You

We are looking for an experienced senior complaints, customer experience or regulatory improvement leader with a strong track record of delivering transformation within a complex organisation.

You will ideally bring:

• Significant senior leadership experience across complaints, customer experience, service recovery or regulatory improvement.
• Strong knowledge of Housing Ombudsman requirements and the Complaint Handling Code.
• Experience working directly with regulators, Ombudsman services or equivalent assurance functions.
• A proven track record of stabilising and improving performance within a challenging operational environment.
• Experience delivering organisation-wide transformation and improvement programmes.
• Strong analytical, strategic and problem-solving skills, with the ability to turn insight and root cause analysis into tangible action.
• Excellent stakeholder management skills, including experience working with Executive Teams, Boards, regulators and external partners.
• CIH Level 5 or equivalent qualification, or evidence of working towards a similar qualification.

The Opportunity

This is an opportunity to take ownership of a high-profile improvement agenda within a major G15 housing provider, with significant scope to influence complaints performance, resident experience, regulatory assurance and organisational learning.

Location: Kings Cross
Working pattern: 4 days office / 1 day from home
Contract: 12 months
Rate: £520.08 per day Umbrella

If you have the senior-level complaints and transformation experience required and are available for an interim assignment of this nature, we would be keen to hear from you.