Recommendation 27

The introduction of the Housing Ombudsman’s complaint handling code and complaint handling failure orders must drive improvement and consistency in the way providers respond to complaints. We are pleased therefore that the Government is legislating through the Social Housing (Regulation) Bill to place the power to establish such a code on a statutory footing. It is not clear, however, if this will strengthen the ombudsman’s ability to enforce compliance. We are also concerned that no one is proactively monitoring whether providers have self-assessed against the code, although we are not sure if the ombudsman or the Regulator of Social Housing would be best placed to do this.