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News from the Housing Ombudsman Service |
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Welcome
Welcome to the latest issue of our newsletter bringing you news and updates on our service. In this issue:
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New podcast episode on disrepair claims
- Complaint Handling Failure Orders report
- Special Report on Lambeth's complaint handling
- Next Spotlight reports to focus on noise and managing agent relationships
- Latest severe maladministration cases
- Insight report – increase in complaints
- New interactive portal development
- Performance improves despite challenges of pandemic
- Training and events
Please share this e-newsletter with colleagues and encourage them to sign up to future issues using the link below.
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New podcast episode discusses disrepair claims
Effective complaint handling is preferable to increasing disrepair claims, which may take longer or leave the issues unresolved. So, it’s crucial for landlords to be clear and confident in the handling of complaints when the pre-action protocol on housing conditions commences. We produced guidance on this for landlords and our latest podcast explores how the disrepair protocol and the complaints procedure should work in parallel.
In this episode, Richard Blakeway, the Housing Ombudsman, talks to Sector Development Lead Dave Simmons, Head of Dispute Resolution Jennifer Ryans and Quality Standards Manager Elizabeth Eves about why there has been a significant increase in legal disrepair claims and what that means for complaint procedures. It sets out the context for the protocol, explains our jurisdiction and addresses the most common questions we’ve been asked since our guidance was published.
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We issued 19 complaint handling failure orders between October and December 2021, highlighting issues with progressing complaints and meeting its standards. In all cases, landlords complied with the orders.
The purpose of complaint handling failure orders is to ensure that a landlord’s complaint handling process is accessible, consistent and enables the timely progression of complaints for residents. The power to issue them was introduced in the revised Housing Ombudsman Scheme.
Orders were issued to ten councils and nine housing associations over the period. It is the first time the number of complaint handling failure orders has gone down over a quarterly reporting period since we started to issue them in January 2021 and compliance rates have improved. Between July and September, 27 were issued with three cases of non-compliance. For April to June, 23 were issued and there were six cases of non-compliance. Ten were issued between January and March and in two cases landlords did not comply.
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Special report on Lambeth’s complaint handling
We issued a Special Report on the London Borough of Lambeth this month following the volume and frequency of complaint handling failure orders issued and a series of formal investigations. We used our new power under the Housing Ombudsman Scheme to consider the landlord’s complaint handling based on those individual investigations.
The aim of the report is to provide insight to help the landlord strengthen its complaint handling and address some of the substantive issues giving rise to complaints. It will also help other landlords identify potential learning to improve their own services. This is part of our wider work to promote learning from complaints, monitor landlord performance and extend investigations under paragraph 50 of our Scheme.
Our next two Spotlight reports for 2022 will examine learning from cases that involve social landlords’ engagement with managing agents, followed by an investigation into noise nuisance. They are part of our ongoing series of Spotlight reports that use insight from the real-life experiences in our casework to share learning and drive improvements for the benefit of all residents.
The first topic follows a number of cases where we have found maladministration about a landlord when a managing agent may be involved in the response to the resident’s issues. The next one will focus on complaints about noise, which often include anti-social behaviour, and are a large proportion of our casework. Anti-social behaviour was the second highest complaint category in 2020-21 at 15% of the total.
All previous Spotlight reports are published on ebsite
Latest severe maladministration cases
We have published a number of cases in recent weeks where we found severe maladministration following an investigation. These are the most serious failings which we publish as part of our ongoing process to increase transparency and to share the lessons learned from each case more widely.
Metropolitan failings with new homeowner
We found multiple failings by Metropolitan Thames Valley in dealing with a resident’s leaking roof and damaged ceilings that led to the condition worsening and water coming into almost every room in the new build property.
Read More
Great Yarmouth’s serious failures on dealing with mould in resident’s home
Great Yarmouth Borough Council failed to deal with mould growth throughout a resident’s home that was causing damage, and then delayed in putting right faulty improvement works that worsened the situation.
Read More
LB Ealing’s failures over six year leak
The London Borough of Ealing’s complaint handling failures led to a finding of severe maladministration after a resident experienced lengthy and frustrating delays in getting a response to her complaint.
Read More
Anchor Hanover resident left homeless following domestic violence
We found cumulative failings by Anchor Hanover in responding to a resident’s request for a transfer after experiencing domestic violence.
Read More
Abri case for significant detriment to vulnerable resident
We made a finding of severe maladministration about Abri Homes’ complaint handling on a case that resulted in significant detriment to a vulnerable resident.
Read More
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Insight report – increase in complaints
Our last Insight report covering July to September 2021 showed an 83% increase in the volume of enquiries and complaints received compared to the same quarter in 2020. We received 6,595 enquiries and complaints between July and September.
The report also provided data for Greater London, the region where the Ombudsman receives some of the highest complaint volumes. The case studies featured were selected from cases across the region and reflect the most frequent complaint categories – property condition, complaint handling and anti-social behaviour.
The learning from those cases highlighted the role of mediation services, particularly in relation to noise related complaints, and how landlords could use these independent professional experts at an earlier stage to increase resident engagement with the process.
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New interactive portal development
We are developing a new online interactive portal that will enable residents and landlords to directly upload information and evidence and to view the status of their complaints. It will make submitting evidence and viewing complaint updates digitally more convenient and secure.
The new portal will allow landlords and residents to submit documentary evidence during the lifetime of a complaint and aims to provide an easy access route to updates, reducing the need to use other contact routes like phone and email.
We are keen to ensure the portal meets our customer needs, so will be carrying out some user testing ahead of its launch later this calendar year, when it will be rolled out in phases.
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Performance improves despite challenges of pandemic
Our Annual Report for 2020-21, published at the end of last year, showed that we maintained a strong performance against all our targets despite the unprecedented year. Complaint volumes initially reduced and then far exceeded previous levels by the end of the year. The number of cases upheld increased to 49% from 41% in the year before, and we made 3,455 orders and recommendations to put things right for residents, more than any recent year.
The report sets out how we not only continued to keep our service running at the height of the Covid pandemic but over the year improved our performance and developed a more proactive role promoting transparency, accountability and learning.
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Training and events
We run a number of our own events and some in partnership with other organisations to share learning and best practice in complaint handling across the sector.
Housing Ombudsman webinars
Webinar on best practice for governing bodies
Webinars on damp and mould
Regional landlord forums: 10am – 12.30pm
We are holding regional forums for landlords that will focus on discussions about learning from complaints. These informal events will provide an opportunity for landlords to share information and ideas about systems and processes for capturing intelligence from complaints and about being pro-active in ensuring it is used positively to improve complaint handling practices and the provision of housing services.
Visit our website to register
Complaints Handling Masterclass for Engaged Residents:
ASB Resolve: Workshop on antisocial behaviour
Find out more about our training and events below
You can now sign up to receive our press releases when they are issued. Use the link below to sign up.
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