Huge rise in severe maladministration findings by Housing Ombudsman
The Housing Ombudsman’s annual complaints review has revealed a 323% rise in severe maladministration findings.
The Ombudsman said the findings painted a challenging picture of social housing complaints, with a huge spike due to poor property conditions, legislative changes, media attention and the inquest into the death of Awaab Ishak.
The review also revealed a 40% increase in maladministration findings where service requests were not handled reasonably, and a 20 percent decrease in findings of no fault. More than half of all findings were upheld for the first time.
The Ombudsman received over 5,000 complaints for the first time last year, a 28% increase on the previous year.
The Ombudsman has again written to chief executives of the 91 landlords who have a maladministration rate of over 50% to bring urgent attention to the figures. There are 25 landlords with a maladministration rate above 75%.
The Ombudsman has also written to five landlords who had no findings upheld, recognising their positive complaint handling approach.
The annual review also looked at complaint handling failure orders (CHFOs) and key issues for the first time.
The Ombudsman issued 146 CHFOs last year, mostly for failing to progress complaints in line with its Complaint Handling Code, with 73 percent of those being for landlords with over 10,000 homes.
Property condition was once again the most common reason for complaints, with the Ombudsman making almost 2,000 findings. The failure rate resulting from complaints regarding property condition increased dramatically from 39% to 54%. The Ombudsman also found a 52% maladministration rate for health and safety complaints.
London continues to be where the Ombudsman makes most of its determinations, even accounting for the quantity of social homes in the region. It had the highest maladministration rate and accounted for 77 of the 130 severe maladministration findings last year.
The South West has the lowest overall maladministration rate, as well as having a significantly lower maladministration rate on health and safety complaints. The North East and Yorkshire has the lowest severe maladministration rate.
Housing Ombudsman Richard Blakeway said: ‘Our annual complaints review provides a unique and sobering overview into social housing complaints in this country.
‘While the statistics reflect a picture of poor practice, they also reflect the increased pressures we know that social landlords are facing with a combined housing and cost of living crisis.
‘However, despite some notable efforts, what our data shows is a fundamental gap between some of the services landlords deliver and the reasonable expectations of their residents. Too often residents with disabilities or mental health needs are falling between those gaps. Too often the basics not being done properly, with straightforward communication or record keeping being missed leading to problems becoming more severe. This is leading to residents being treated unfairly and experiencing financial detriment or losing the enjoyment of their home.
‘As part of the Social Housing Regulation Act our powers have increased as we will soon be issuing wider orders to help landlords improve their policy and practice in key areas where we see potential for repeated failings.’
Image: Nolan Issac
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