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Government launches social housing complaints awareness campaign
Ministers have launched an awareness campaign aimed at improving social housing residents’ understanding of the complaints process for the sector.
Called ‘Make Things Right’, the campaign will involve the government running adverts on social media and music streaming sites about the social housing complaints process and potential barriers.
An accompanying campaign website provides advice to residents on how to seek redress from their social landlord and escalate complaints to the Housing Ombudsman where necessary.
Such a campaign was promised in the Social Housing White Paper, published in November and titled The Charter for Social Housing Residents. It set out plans for wholesale reform of the consumer regulation framework underpinning the sector.
It comes after a survey carried out by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government found that 59% of issues raised by social housing residents do not go on to become official complaints, regardless of whether they were happy with the initial response from their landlord.
Concerns over retaliation by landlords and neighbours were cited as a reason for not raising issues by 35% of the 1,612 people surveyed.
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Housing minister Eddie Hughes said: “The Charter for Social Housing Residents is clear that all social housing residents should receive a good service and reassurance that if you speak up, then things will be put right.
“While most landlords work hard to put things right when they go wrong, we want to ensure that all residents know how to raise complaints if they have to, and how to approach the Housing Ombudsman to escalate their concern.
“That is why we are launching this new campaign to ensure those living in the four million social homes across England know how to access the complaints process to provide a greater voice for residents and refocus the sector on its social mission.”
One of seven tenets set out in the white paper ‘charter’ is for residents to have “complaints dealt with promptly and fairly”.
The government has already set out plans to remove the “democratic filter” from the complaints process, which currently inhibits complaints from being referred to the ombudsman without an eight-week delay in most cases.
The ombudsman itself is aiming to slash resolution times. Last year it launched a tough new scheme under which it publishes data about landlords’ performance on complaints and requires them to self-assess against a new complaint handling code.
In a report published in September, the service warned that the sector is “consistently getting things wrong” on complaints handling.
James Jamieson, chair of the Local Government Association, said: “Councils want all residents, regardless of tenure, to have the security of a safe and well-maintained home which they are proud to live in.
“It is really important that the voice of all social housing residents is heard, and councils are supportive of measures which improve standards and empower residents.
“This will give them confidence in ensuring that action can be taken to improve living conditions, where it is required.”
