Recommendation 28

HM Government Not Addressed

We believe the Complaint Handling Code has had a significant and positive impact on social landlords’ approach to complaint handling. There has been a high level of engagement with the Code with more than 4,000 downloads of the self-assessment form and 796 attendees at Ombudsman-led training events since July 2020. Compliance with the Code is a condition of membership of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme and therefore the Ombudsman expects member landlords to meet the required elements of the Code, including the definition of a complaint, handling stages and timescales. Revisions to the Code, published in April 2022, are explicit on the mandatory elements and we have asked all landlords to self-assess and comply by 1 October 2022. The Ombudsman has been proactive in promoting the Code and the approach taken has been innovative amongst redress bodies. This includes requiring landlords to self- assess, encouraging them to engage residents in this process, asking them to report the outcome to their governing body and requiring that they publish the self-assessment online. Additionally, the Ombudsman has issued Complaint Handling Failure Orders where landlords have not complied with aspects of the Code, an innovation for the redress sector, and publishes a quarterly summary report which names the landlords in receipt of Complaint Handling Failure Orders over the most recent period. We also use the Code in our formal investigations; we will order or recommend a landlord to review its complaints policy or train staff in line with the Code depending on our findings. Under our current powers, the basis for intervention by the Housing Ombudsman still requires a complaint to be received and our funding arrangements means we are not currently able to commit resources to pro-active monitoring. The Ombudsman has made the case for its powers to be expanded by placing the Code on a statutory footing and allowing us to pro-actively monitor compliance. The Ombudsman welcomes the inclusion of these proposals as part of the Social Housing Regulation Bill. Subject to the Bill reaching the statute, this will enable the Ombudsman to move beyond responding to individual complaints to seek assurance that the Code is being met. This will include asking all landlords to submit their self-assessment to the Ombudsman and investigating, even when there isn’t a complaint, where there is evidence of poor practice.