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From Monday (6th) March, the Government launched the ‘Make Things Right’ advertising campaign to make more social housing tenants aware of how they can make a complaint about their housing.
Findings from the government’s social housing resident panel – bringing together over 200 residents across the country – found 65% of members said their experiences of raising complaints with their landlord had been unsatisfactory. Some of the key issues residents raised include:
- The time taken for complaints to be addressed and resolved
- Disrespectful conduct, lack of communication, or inaccuracy of information experienced during previous complaints process
- Lack of repercussions for landlords if residents are not taken seriously or complaints are not resolved satisfactorily
- Burden and complexity of the complaints process
Almost a third of all social renters considered making a complaint in 2020-21, but 27% chose not to because they thought nothing would be done in response, according to figures from the English Housing Survey.
Since October last year, it has been quicker and easier for residents to take complaints directly to the Housing Ombudsman, after the requirement for people to go to their MP or local councillor first and wait 8 weeks after completing the landlord’s process was removed.
Effective complaint handling starts with landlords getting things right first time. If and when things do go wrong, landlords must fix the issue, apologise, offer appropriate compensation, and show they have learnt from those errors. If that doesn’t happen then residents can take their complaint to us at the Housing Ombudsman. We’re free, independent and impartial in order to help residents and landlords find a resolution to their complaint.
Richard Blakeway, Housing Ombudsman
We use the feedback we get through complaints and other means to improve our services and will continue to do our best to fix the issues our customers report to us.
To learn more about our complaints process, please visit the complaints section of our website.
You can find more information on the ‘Make Things Right’ campaign at www.gov.uk/social-housing-complaints
Article content taken from the Department for Levelling up, Housing and Communities press release.