Housing: Ombudsman

(asked on )

Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, pursuant to his answer of 9 January 2018 to Question 119694 on Housing: Ombudsman, if he will ask the Housing Ombudsman Service to make a statement on the (a) reasons why it did not meet its target that the average time taken to reach a final determination on complaints submitted in 2017-18 should be six months and (b) steps being taken to achieve this target in 2018/19.


Answered by
Heather Wheeler Portrait
Heather Wheeler
This question was answered on 16th July 2018

The average case time for determining complaints by the Housing Ombudsman service was reduced from a nine month average in 2016-17, to eight months at the end of 2017-18. The Housing Ombudsman reports on determination times in its published Annual Report, which noted difficulty in recruitment and retention of temporary case workers impacting on this delivery. The Housing Ombudsman aims to reduce determination times further and is committed to achieving the six-month target in 2018-19. The steps it is taking to achieve this are set out in the Business Plan 2018-19 published and available on their website: https://www.housing-ombudsman.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Business-plan-2018-19.pdf

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