Social Housing: Housing Ombudsman

Luke Hall Excerpts

Thursday 1st July 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Regional Growth and Local Government (Luke Hall)]

I congratulate and thank the hon. Lady for bringing this debate before the House. I know how important the provision of safe and decent social housing is to her. She has spoken passionately on behalf of Kwajo and so many of her constituents who want to see progress in the area, so I am grateful to have the opportunity to discuss this important agenda and set out what we are doing to try to improve the lives of social housing tenants.

Hearing the hon. Lady’s remarks, and seeing the news reports over recent weeks, has highlighted the plight of some residents of social housing who are struggling with unacceptable conditions and landlord services. These cases have raised critical questions for many people involved in social housing, which is why the White Paper—I will come on to that—is such an important step in addressing some of those questions.

Of the 23 million households in this country, 17% are in the social rented sector, with 2.5 million people renting from a housing association, and 1.6 million people renting from a local authority. People in social housing must be treated with dignity and respect, and have their complaints handled effectively. The recent cases we have heard about today highlight the fact that some residents are simply not receiving a quality service from their landlord. We heard about the terrible conditions in a Croydon council housing block, and the council has commissioned ARK Consultancy to carry out an independent investigation. ARK’s report assesses what went wrong, and sets out the steps that Croydon Council must take to address those failings.

The Regulator of Social Housing has concluded its investigation into the issues in Croydon, and found the council to be in breach of its consumer standards. The regulator is working with the council to ensure that it takes the necessary action to remedy those issues. It is also considering information received from Clarion Housing Association about the Eastfields estate, which we have heard so much about. It will form a view on whether there is evidence of systemic failure that would indicate a breach of regulatory standards.

The Government were appalled to hear and learn about the conditions on the Eastfields estate. Social homes must be safe and decent, and provide security and dignity for residents, who should be treated with respect. If things go wrong, there should be swift redress. In this shocking case those expectations were not met. I understand Ann’s anger, and I thank her for the work she is doing on behalf of residents.

A review of decent homes standards has begun, as has work to improve fire and electrical safety, and address harm from carbon monoxide. I understand that Croydon has accepted its failings in full, and the regulator is considering future progress. The Housing Ombudsman has an important role in improving residents’ experience of social housing. It experienced a big drop in the number of inquiries and complaints last spring, in 2020, due to the impact of the pandemic, but in recent months the number of complaints has significantly increased. Just over 6,000 complaints and inquiries were made between January and March this year, which is a 73% increase compared with the same quarter last year. Although some of those issues may have been deferred during the pandemic and stored up to be raised now, we cannot accept that this is a new normal. The increase underlines the need of landlords to adhere to the good practice set out in the complaint handling code. It is clear that some landlords have significant work to do to improve the standard of their homes, and the service they provide to their residents.

Croydon has highlighted issues of damp and mould in the Eastfields case, and the ombudsman recently issued a call for evidence to support investigation into that. That was in response to data that suggested a high rate of maladministration in those cases, and the significant impact that had on the lives of so many residents. The investigation will enable the ombudsman to make recommendations to help landlords improve their services. Despite the shocking cases highlighted in Croydon and Eastfields, there are positive signs of broader improvement in standards.

[Siobhain McDonagh]

How would the Minister resolve problems of damp and mould growth in a one-bedroom flat where there is a mum and four or five children? I do not think any landlord in the country could do that. We are desperate for Eastfields to be regenerated, and we completely support Clarion in its efforts to do that. That is the only way people on that estate will get to live in houses of the size they need. For those not at Eastfields, there is not the same way out.

[Luke Hall]

I thank the hon. Lady again for that point. I am always happy to discuss that in detail with her, including outside this debate, and I am happy to hear more about the individual cases she has raised that are so shocking and so worrying.

I think, however, that we are seeing some signs of broader improvements. If we look back to 2019, we see that 12% of dwellings in the social rented sector failed to meet the decent homes standard. That is down from 20% in 2010. This is lower than the proportion of the private rented sector and owner-occupied homes that fail the standard, but it is still not good enough. That is why we are reviewing the decent homes standard as a key plank of our “The charter for social housing residents: social housing white paper”, which we published in November 2020.

The charter for social housing residents states that every social housing resident in England should be able to expect to be safe in their home, should know that their landlord is performing, should have their complaints dealt with properly and fairly, should be treated with respect, should have their voice heard, should have a good-quality home and neighbourhood to live in, and should be supported to take their first step to ownership. The reforms set out in the White Paper, which underpins the charter, will drive change throughout the social housing sector, as the hon. Lady said, ensuring that everyone working in the sector listens to residents and treats them with courtesy and respect.

We know that many landlords are passionate about putting their residents first and we want to see that approach replicated throughout the sector. That is why our reform package will transform social housing redress and consumer regulation. It will improve the quality and safety of social homes and rebalance the relationship between landlords and tenants. The regulator of social housing will be given stronger powers to proactively monitor and drive compliance with consumer standards, with regular inspections of the largest landlords and new tenant satisfaction measures to help assess landlord performance on issues such as repairs and complaints handling. The White Paper emphasises the importance of the ombudsman service in ensuring that residents can access swift and fair redress when things go wrong. It sets out the range of measures to increase the ombudsman’s impact in driving up standards, including through closer working with the regulator of social housing.

The hon. Lady mentioned the Housing Ombudsman Service, which is compulsory for social landlords, and its membership consists of over 2,300 landlords representing over 4.5 million individual households. The White Paper has set out how we have already acted to enable the ombudsman to take decisions more quickly. If we look at the ombudsman’s average determination rate for formal investigations in 2019-20, we see that it was below its six-month target at 5.8 months. It is the first time that that target has been achieved, so it is positive news that the performance is better than it has been, and we are trying to speed up access to the ombudsman by removing the democratic filter that the hon. Lady talked about through the building safety Bill. That will allow residents with unresolved complaints to have direct access to the ombudsman rather than having to wait eight weeks or approach an MP, a councillor or a tenant panel for a referral. That is an important point that she and many others have raised many times before.

We have strengthened the ombudsman’s powers so that it can take stronger action against landlords and better support residents when things go wrong. There is a very high level of compliance by landlords with compliance orders: 95% within three months and 99% within six months. Landlords were ordered to pay compensation to residents totalling £412,000 across the year, and last year three quarters of residents who sought support with an informal resolution of complaints said that the ombudsman had helped them.

Since the White Paper was published, the Housing Ombudsman, Richard Blakeway, has made further progress in responding to the White Paper agenda, including establishing a 600-strong resident panel that will involve residents in the development of the ombudsman service, in publishing a framework that sets out how the ombudsman will look beyond individual disputes to identify problems that need to be addressed across the sector, and launching that investigation into damp and mould—an issue, again, that I know is very important to many of the hon. Lady’s constituents—as well as by publishing determinations in individual cases and the landlord performance data, and issuing complaint handling failure orders when landlords fall short of the standards set out in the complaints handling code that we published last summer.

We know, however, that many of the most egregious complaints never reach the ombudsman, meaning that some residents miss out on the support that could be offered to them. That is why the White Paper sets out plans for a communication campaign to ensure that social housing residents know how to complain when things go wrong and that they have confidence in the process. Earlier this year, we ran a five-week campaign on social media with the slogan “Make Things Right”. That campaign has helped to improve awareness of the ability to raise these issues and has raised confidence in the process. We are absolutely committed to implementing the reforms that were laid out in our charter for social housing residents. They will deliver transformational change for social residents. We continue to develop our proposals on social housing regulations and want to legislate as soon as is practicable.

[Siobhain McDonagh]

When? What month? What year?

[Luke Hall]

Unfortunately, I cannot give the hon. Lady a date at this point, but we want to do it as soon as we are possibly able to, and when the proposals are right and ready. We share her urgency and passion to get this done, but we want to develop our reforms and get them in the right place. We will legislate as soon as we can, but of course we understand the urgency of the issues that she has raised. I know how important this is to the hon. Lady and her constituents, and that there are so many issues that could be addressed. Perhaps I could meet her to talk about some of them in more detail in the coming days and weeks, so that we can hear more about her constituents’ concerns. I am very grateful to her.

We want to ensure that the system for handling social housing residents’ complaints is fit for purpose and accessible, and that it drives improvements for individual complainants and for the benefit of all the residents in a community. That is why we are taking action to ensure that the social housing sector is better regulated, that residents have better and faster access to redress, and fundamentally to rebalance the relationship between landlords and residents.

The charter for social housing residents sets out what every social housing resident should be able to expect. The measures set out in the White Paper will ensure that those expectations become a reality for all residents.

Question put and agreed to.