The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Kris Hopkins)
The Communities and Local Government Select Committee report into the regulation of social housing in England included a recommendation for the Government, working with the social housing sector, to make sure that tenants of social housing are aware of the correct process to make a complaint about their landlord. The Committee pointed out in its report that numerous complaints are misdirected to the Homes and Communities Agency and this can be frustrating for tenants as well as a waste of resources for the agency.
To respond to this recommendation, I am, today, writing to David Orr, the chief executive of the National Housing Federation, Grainia Long, the chief executive of the Chartered Institute of Housing, and the chairman of the Local Government Association to ask for their thoughts and ideas on how we can ensure that tenants are aware of the correct process when making a complaint and what work they have done, or are planning to do, with their members on this important subject.
My ministerial colleague, the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol West (Stephen Williams), has been working with the national tenant organisations and others to promote the role that social tenants can play in helping to shape their housing services. He will be writing to landlords shortly to publicise our forthcoming guide “Tenants Leading Change”, which will explain the role that tenant panels can play. He will be asking landlords to promote and disseminate this to their tenants and reminding landlords of the need to make it clear how their tenants can raise a complaint.
In 2011, the Government made a change in the way social housing tenants could make a complaint against their landlords. For the first time MPs, councillors and designated tenant panels were given a formal, statutory role in the complaints process—local problems are best resolved locally by the people who live and work in those neighbourhoods. Whereas the vast majority of tenants have a good relationship with their landlords and never need to make a formal complaint about the service they receive, for those who do though it is important that they can raise that complaint with the right person and that it can be dealt with as quickly as possible.
The key stages in the complaint process are:
Step 1—In the first instance a tenant should make a formal complaint to their landlord.
Step 2—If the complaint cannot be resolved, a tenant can contact a designated person that is either their MP, local councillor or designated tenant panel. The designated person can take up the case to resolve locally or, if necessary, refer the case to the housing ombudsman.
Step 3—If neither of the previous two steps have managed to resolve the complaint a tenant can contact the housing ombudsman directly.
The housing ombudsman’s website gives a clear and easy to understand explanation of the process and the Homes and Communities Agency’s online guidance explains its role and gives advice on where and how to make a complaint. The gov.uk website also sets out how to make a complaint.