Rent and Service Charges

7 x Landlords Complaints Against Housing Ombudsman Data

Ombudsman Maladministration Data is Important and Meaningful

I established that 7 x social landlords made a complaint to the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) anonymously about how the Housing Ombudsman produces social landlord maladministration rates.

The OSR did not uphold any of the complaints. An informal private response was sent to each landlord on 6th and 7th Nov 2023.

There has also been disgruntlement by some leaders in the industry about the Housing Ombudsman data it produces each year. Comments include “data being compared between apples and pears” and a “misuse of statistics.”

As you may have seen I produced a consolidated set of data for the landlords that had 5 or more determinations by the Ombudsman in 22/23. This included:

> Regulator of Social Housing governance and financial viability gradings.

> Contingent liabilities and provisions made within their 22/23 financial accounts.

> Whether a letter was sent by the Rt Hon Michael Gove MP to any landlord for any failure.

I produced the consolidated data including financial information so that this would enable stakeholders to identify if say there had been enough financial provisions being made for say disrepairs.

The Ombudsman’s maladministration data should be used to link to this information. I also sought the whole industry to recognise landlords should be working towards a zero maladministration rate.

Especially the actions the Ombudsman took straight after the coroner's verdict with Rochdale Borough Housing (RBH) from the inquest involving Awaab Ishak.

The Ombudsman was alerted to three complaints at RBH (202119027, 202113713 and 202207288) which had been assessed as high or medium risk.

Specifically with 202119027, this caused the Ombudsman to conduct further investigation to establish if this complaint was indicative of wider failure at RBH.

177,581 signatures were obtained which helped create Awaab’s law after an excellent campaign by the charity Shelter and the Manchester Evening Newspaper. Also recently a senior Doctor has warned thousands (31,000) of babies and toddlers are falling sick from damp homes in the UK.

The Ombudsman does provide fruitful data and comparisons. For instance within a landlord report, it provides a comparison in how a landlord has performed with its maladministration rates with other similar sized landlords.

Therefore any maladministration should not be taken lightly even if there has been one failure. No matter how many units a landlord has this should not make any difference.

Some landlords leaders and boards also need to recognise further regulatory changes in the future especially with disrepairs. The RSH enforcement powers will be strengthened, allowing the RSH to require Performance Improvement Plans from landlords, make emergency repairs where needed, and issue unlimited fines to failing landlords.

I am pleased to see how the Ombudsman is working hard in creating other guidance such as the next spotlight report will focus on landlords to identify and record any of its customer residents as having any vulnerabilities.

Update 17th Nov 2023: some tenants and leaseholders I've been speaking to have said they wish these landlords were just as speedy in dealing with complaints as the landlords were in complaining to the stats regulator.