The Housing Ombudsman: Identifying Common Issues in The Housing Sector

The Housing Ombudsman, the organisation that investigates and resolves disputes involving tenants and leaseholders of social landlords, has released its latest quarterly data report .

It makes for grim reading. The report says the organisation received 11,205 complaints and enquiries in Q1 2023. That’s 3,082 more than the previous quarter and around 9,000 more than Q4 2021.

But it’s not all focused on complaints. For the first time, the Ombudsman has published an insight report exploring the main reasons for complaints against housing providers.?

This is critical information, not only for holding the sector to account but also for helping landlords identify where issues are most likely to arise.?

In this newsletter, I will look at what the Housing Ombudsman does, how housing providers respond to its findings, and where I think there is still room for improvement.

Helping a Sector Improve

The figures I mentioned above represent a housing sector that is in crisis. I’ve written many times before about this.?

In recent years, the news has been dominated by high-profile cases where a housing provider’s inability to provide a decent tenant experience has led to residents having to put up with poor-quality housing and service.?

In May, the government was forced to step in when 20,000 families were found to be living in council homes that didn’t meet minimum safety standards. Shockingly, this represented more than a third of Birmingham City Council’s housing stock.

The Housing Ombudsman was formed to ensure that complaints over poor-quality housing and the underlying problems are dealt with effectively. It also communicates learnings from individual cases to the sector as a whole and shares solutions to these problems.?

It does this by setting out a series of obligations for its members and taking action against those who are found to have broken them.?

All local authorities and registered social housing providers are required to be members of the Housing Ombudsman, while private landlords and letting agents can join voluntarily.?

The organisation investigates complaints and disputes involving its members’ tenants and leaseholders.??

It can order landlords to put things right for tenants by apologising to the resident, paying compensation, or making repairs. The housing provider must act upon orders.

The Housing Ombudsman can also make recommendations. These are suggestions for wider organisational change at the housing provider that will avoid problems arising again in the future. For example, this could include better staff training or record keeping.?

Highlighting Poor Landlord Standards

The Housing Ombudsman also publishes its findings when it investigates resident complaints. It publishes the complaint, the problems that caused it, and what remedial recommendations it made - including any compensation the housing provider is ordered to pay.

This achieves three things.?

Firstly, it ensures the organisation is transparent and accountable. Secondly, and most importantly, it ensures that housing providers who fail their duty of care to residents are named.??

I know that most housing providers want to deliver a good service - and many do. However, a few simply don’t care enough about providing a good tenant experience or don’t have the right strategy to deliver this. For these providers, the threat of being named and fined is hopefully enough to force them to raise their standards.

Thirdly, publishing findings shows residents that they have the power to hold landlords accountable. It proves they don’t have to put up with poor-quality housing and inadequate service. It shows the Housing Ombudsman will listen to their complaints and take fair and appropriate action.

Hopefully, this will encourage more people to come forward, which in turn will lead to more housing issues being dealt with.?

A less obvious benefit is that it surfaces the most common problems and highlights which organisations fail to meet standards - which allows the underlying problems to be addressed.?

Insight Report Is Critical

The Ombudsman’s Insight Report is a great example of how big data can be used to help housing organisations predict what issues they are likely to face and take proactive action to stop them from occurring.

This is one of the reasons we created EVO. We help housing providers deliver a better tenant experience by transforming the systems they use to manage their properties.

Our digital solution allows residents to request repairs using an app on their smartphone. A repair is then automatically scheduled with an approved tradesperson at a time that is convenient for the resident. This ensures the issue is dealt with efficiently and professionally.

Our solution also allows housing providers to collect and analyse repairs and maintenance data from across their entire portfolios. They can use this information to make better, more proactive decisions over their properties.?

For example, a housing provider might find that a particular boiler type fails after a certain period. They can use this information to schedule maintenance visits or replace them before this date.

To illustrate how it works, let’s look at a couple of recently published cases from the Housing Ombudsman website. We’ll explain how EVO could have helped them.?

The London Borough of Haringey

The Ombudsman investigated the London Borough of Haringey after a large number of complaints about the way it handled leaks, damp and mould; the complaints were upheld.?

The Ombudsman discovered a culture of apathy in the Borough’s housing department. The organisation found failings in eight areas. Many related to complaint handling, but those associated with repairs and maintenance were:

• Unreasonable delays, both in inspecting repair requests and then carrying out the repairs.
• Lack of internal guidance on damp and mould.
• No enhanced repairs and maintenance support provided to vulnerable residents.
• Poor information management, including key documents missing, jobs raised and left open, and a lack of learning and record keeping. There was also a lack of professional pride and accountability.

In response, the Borough said that it had brought the arms-length management organisation (ALMO) in charge of managing repairs and maintenance back in-house.?

It also said that it would:

• Improve management of disrepair, damp and mould.
• Improve knowledge and information management.
• Publish its resident experience improvement plan.

How EVO could have helped

With EVO, residents request a repair using an app on their phone, and a suitably qualified tradesperson is automatically assigned at a time that is convenient to the resident - so the amount of time it takes for a repair to be made is minimised.?

Using the EVO system would have provided tradespeople with all the information they need on a job and property. This would include whether the resident is vulnerable and the damp and mould policies that they need to follow. Any completed jobs would be automatically recorded in the property’s history.

With EVO, jobs are monitored to ensure they are completed, and any further work required is noted.?

Finally, we vet all tradespeople to ensure they provide high-quality work and service, and any that do not meet the EVO standard are removed from the EVO network.

Aster Group

Aster Group is a housing provider mainly operating in the South West of England. The Housing Ombudsman filed two findings of maladministration against the organisation after it failed to appropriately deal with flooring complaints from a disabled tenant and wrongly issued them with a Section 21 notice.?

Aster Group was ordered to apologise to the resident and pay more than ￡5,000 in compensation.?

Since the report, the organisation has announced the following changes:

• Updated its lettable standard for accessible homes to ensure it always fits appropriate flooring in these homes.
• Reviewed its training to ensure services are delivered in an accessible way.
• Colleagues are asked to complete mandatory equality training, which provides the skills to give customers a better experience.
• Reviewed its internal lettings process and complaints procedures.
• Provided additional training to the complaints team and updated processes to help customers with vulnerabilities and/or disabilities get support during the lettings process.
• Introduced virtual viewings for all customers.
• Launched a Complaints Learning Group, which includes customer representatives and helps identify where the organisation can improve its service offering.

How EVO could have helped

EVO provides a profile for each property that clearly alerts users if a resident has additional needs or is vulnerable.?

Aster Group could have used this information to ensure that appropriate flooring was installed and that it was more suitable for a wheelchair user.

Using EVO, the landlord would have also been aware of any previous flooring work carried out as well as relevant maintenance timelines allowing them to ensure the flooring remained in a suitable condition.?

Final Thought: Make Repairs and Maintenance Simple

Both housing providers in the examples above proposed changes to stop the problems from arising again.

However, it struck me that neither suggested doing things differently. Yes, they suggested things like additional training and reviewing policies.?

But the fundamentally broken systems that led to these problems still exist. If anything, I think these solutions and extra layers could create additional hassle and put pressure on an already ineffective system.

It’s another reason we created EVO. By digitising repairs and maintenance under a single system, we simplify processes, free up time, and improve resident satisfaction.

The organisations we’ve worked with have been blown away by how effective it has been for them - I would encourage other housing providers to consider switching to digital systems too.