Housing Ombudsman plans to identify sector’s ‘systemic failures’

The new direction of travel has been signed off by the secretary of state following consultation on the business plan and revised Housing Ombudsman scheme, launched in October last year.

Plans include developing a new complaints-handling code to achieve greater consistency across landlords’ complaint procedures.

Resolution of complaints was a central focus of the Social Housing Green Paper, which aimed to set out a “new deal for social housing” in response to the Grenfell Tower tragedy. A Social Housing White Paper is expected to be published by the UK government this spring.

Under the Housing Act 1996, social landlords must be members of an approved ombudsman scheme, to enable the Housing Ombudsman to investigate complaints by tenants and others about them.

The ombudsman’s role is focused on resolving disputes involving members of its scheme, including offering compensation or other remedies when appropriate, as well as on supporting effective landlord-tenant dispute resolution by others.

Its members total 2,448 landlords and cover five million households. These include 2,057 housing associations with 3.2 million households, 325 local authorities with 1.8 million households, as well as 66 voluntary members with 19,000 households.

The ombudsman is promising a “new, more efficient operating model” from April, with a goal of delivering “a step change in providing timely, effective and high-quality redress”.

Along with looking at its own productivity and efficiency, it will be increasing the subscription rate to its scheme by more than 70 per cent, following a three-year rate freeze.

The rate will move from £1.25 per home to £2.16 per home in 2020/21, with a view to maintaining it at the same level for 2021/22 unless there are exceptional changes in circumstances. Registered providers are also set for a 15 per cent increase to regulatory fees, which the RSH confirmed in February.

The ombudsman’s new business plan said: “Unresolved complaints incur additional costs for both landlords and residents as well as having a personal impact on households and undermining the landlord-tenant relationship. It has also been widely recognised across the sector that our service has been under-resourced for some time and investment is needed.”

“It has also been widely recognised across the sector that our service has been under-resourced for some time and investment is needed”

Plans include faster casework timescales – targeting an average case determination time of four to five months in 2020/21 and three to four months in 2021/22; a new key performance indicator for the quality of casework, with 95 per cent to be assessed as acceptable or better; and more demanding performance indicators for resident and landlord satisfaction.

One of the main differences will be ‘triaging’ cases to determine their complexity and encouraging landlords to resolve more complaints through their own procedures.

The ombudsman said it wants to work effectively with landlords before a complaint enters its formal process, by encouraging residents and landlords to successfully resolve complaints themselves and determining cases more quickly when they enter its formal remit.

The new provisions under the revised scheme are expected to take effect from 1 July.

Hear from Richard Blakeway and the regulator’s Fiona MacGregor at the Social Housing Finance Conference in London on 7 May 2020. Click here for details.