Housing Ombudsman gets ‘extra tools’ to act on service failures

Richard Blakeway, housing ombudsman, said: “These changes will help us to extend fairness to residents who may experience poor service without the landlord taking action on the root causes.

“This will also help landlords to learn from complaints and prompt changes in landlord behaviour.”

It comes as the rate of maladministration findings against housing associations and councils has significantly ticked up amid an effort by housing secretary Michael Gove to get tough on landlords’ poor standards. 

Last month, Mr Gove wrote to eight social landlords warning them to improve following severe maladministration findings from the Housing Ombudsman. 

The ombudsman said the expanded authority enables it to require landlords to go “beyond the scope of individual complaints and seek to address any wider issues”.

This will also help the agency monitor compliance with the orders. 

In 2022-23, the ombudsman made around 6,500 orders and recommendations following investigations.

Mr Blakeway added: “By extending the ombudsman’s reach beyond individual complaints, more residents will benefit from the ombudsman’s oversight and intervention, ultimately enhancing the quality of social housing.

“These powers also give us extra tools to act when we see repeated service failure.”

The Social Housing (Regulation) Act also features extra Housing Ombudsman powers to publish best practice guidance to landlords following investigations into tenant complaints.

The ombudsman has also published updated remedies guidance outlining these changes.

Last week, the ombudsman launched its Complaint Handling Code consultation, ahead of it becoming statutory. The ombudsman is seeking views from across the sector on its proposals.