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Housing Ombudsman confirms tougher new powers following government approval
The Housing Ombudsman has confirmed that a tougher new scheme will take effect this year after housing secretary Robert Jenrick approved its proposals.
.@HousingOmbuds confirms tougher new powers following government approval #ukhousingTougher new @HousingOmbuds powers are set to come into force in July after @RobertJenrick gave them his approval #ukhousingThe @HousingOmbuds has confirmed that a tougher new scheme will take effect this year after housing secretary Robert Jenrick approved its proposals #ukhousingUnder the new approach, the dispute resolution service will have the power to issue “complaint-handling failure orders” against landlords and will develop a new complaint-handling code to improve consistency between organisations.
It will also be able to declare “severe maladministration” by landlords and require them to show they have learned from ombudsman decisions.
The ombudsman will have a more proactive role in identifying systemic issues at organisations or across the social housing sector and reporting these to the Regulator of Social Housing, with a new team dedicated to this purpose.
Data on individual landlords’ complaint-handling performance and all determination outcomes will be published by the end of 2020/21.
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Inside Housing recently revealed that landlords hand over evidence late in nine out of 10 cases investigated by the Housing Ombudsman.
The new scheme is expected to take effect from 1 July, with guidance on complaint-handling failure orders, the complaint handling code and the framework for systemic investigations by the ombudsman to be published later this year.
A new business plan for the Housing Ombudsman, which has also received government sign-off, confirms the service’s ambition to halve average determination times to three to four months by 2021/22.
The business plan will see landlords’ subscription fee to the service increase to £2.16 per home, having been at £1.25 since 2017/18.
Proposals for the new scheme and business plan were launched subject to consultation and ministerial approval in October.
The confirmed policies are largely unchanged from the proposals, aside from a widening of the definition of “systemic failing” to encompass issues beyond individual organisations.
Landlords, residents and other stakeholders indicated “strong support” for the proposals during the consultation, the ombudsman said.
Housing Ombudsman Richard Blakeway said: “Our goal is to deliver a step change in providing timely, effective and high-quality redress.
“Equally, we are dedicated to promoting positive change by sharing the insights into our casework, creating more tools for landlords to improve their complaint-handling and sharing our data publicly.
“We are grateful to everyone who responded to the consultations to help shape our plans to improve housing redress.”
Under the new scheme, complaints to the ombudsman will still be subject to the democratic filter – which the service has previously said should be scrapped and was identified as a problem by the government’s Social Housing Green Paper in 2018.
The democratic filter requires residents to refer complaints to a “designated person” – that is, a councillor, an MP or a tenant panel – or wait eight weeks before approaching the ombudsman.
Housing associations and councils with housing stock are required by law to subscribe to the Housing Ombudsman scheme, with private landlords also able to join voluntarily.
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