Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, pursuant to the Answer of 27 March 2019 to Question 234661 on the draft Public Services Ombudsman Bill, what criteria the Government plans to use to determine whether the Housing Ombudsman Service will be brought within the scope of the Public Service Ombudsman.

The Government has not yet established the criteria that would be used to make such a
determination. Any decision to introduce the necessary secondary legislation would need to take into
account feedback received during pre-legislative scrutiny and the passage of the Bill. In addition the
Government published its response to Strengthening Consumer Redress in the Housing Market
consultation on 24 January 2019 which set out proposals to establish a new Housing Complaints
Resolution Service to provide a single point of access to redress across all housing tenures.