Housing Ombudsman upholds two-thirds of investigations into complaint handling in 2021-22, describes approach of social landlords as “inadequate”

The Housing Ombudsman upheld two-thirds (66%) of investigations into complaint handling between April 2020 and March 2021, the service's first annual review of complaints has revealed.

The report also identifies the strategic and operational challenges the Ombudsman says the social housing sector needs to overcome including:

• Not all landlords have adopted a positive complaint handling culture;
• The need to increase trust among residents that complaining will make a difference;
• Procedural failings with high uphold rates in complaint handling;
• Inadequate records with poor record keeping being a common finding;
• Missed or unproductive appointments;
• Poor communication and lack of follow up.    

The annual review notes that three categories of complaint represented just over 60% of all complaints. These were ‘Property Condition’, ‘Handling of tenant behaviour’ and ‘Complaint handling’, which accounted for 19% of all complaints determined.

The report’s national analysis found London to be the region with the highest number of determinations per 10,000 social homes.

The annual review also covers the effectiveness of the Ombudsman’s new Complaint Handling Code, which is intended to lay the foundations for a universal approach to complaint handling at a local level by social landlords, offering a consistent approach to defining a complaint.

The report suggests that the introduction of the Code, effective from 1 January 2021, has had a significant impact on the volume of complaints and enquiries.

Demand reached ‘unprecedented levels’ in 2021-22, with an increase of 104% for all enquiries and complaints and an increase of 88% for formal investigations.

The report suggests that a key factor affecting this increase was the ‘adoption of the universal definition of a complaint’, paired with required timescales enabling complaints to be brought through more quickly.

The Ombudsman has recently announced changes to the Code, following a review one year after it took effect. These changes are intended to support a positive complaint handling culture by:

• increasing the obligations on landlords to raise awareness of the complaints process and the Housing Ombudsman;
• setting good practice for a member of the governing body to be identified as having lead responsibility for complaints and for all landlord staff to have a standard objective related to effective complaint handling; and
• reinforcing the importance of learning from complaints by being explicit that the self-assessment should be completed as an annual exercise. 

The changes take effect from 1 April 2022 and landlords will have until 1 October 2022 to become compliant.

Furthermore, the Ombudsman has reviewed the operation of its Complaint Handling Failure Orders and confirmed that orders will be issued for failures to provide evidence of compliance with the Ombudsman’s orders in addition to failure to provide evidence. 

Richard Blakeway, Housing Ombudsman, said: “Creating and embedding a culture that values complaints and gives them the appropriate level of priority requires strong leadership and management.

“Our analysis strongly suggests both complaint handling and service delivery need to be improved across our membership. The uphold rate of 66% on complaint handling sends a stark message that this is inadequate across our membership.”

He added that he strongly encouraged senior leaders and governing bodies to use the annual review to facilitate a wider discussion about their organisation’s success in handling complaints and how it can develop its approach.

Lottie Winson