Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, with reference to the Housing Ombudsman press release entitled, Housing Ombudsman urges Hackney Council to avoid positivity prism as it drives performance improvement, published on 22 May 2025, what steps her Department is taking to respond to the findings of (a) maladministration and (b) failures in housing services.

The Department welcomes the Housing Ombudsman’s report on Hackney Council, published on 22 May 2025, and takes its findings seriously.

Issuing such reports is part of the Housing Ombudsman Services’ role in using insights from individual cases to identify systemic issues and drive improvements in landlords’ complaint handling and service delivery.

The Ombudsman has issued orders and recommendations to Hackney Council and has committed to working with Hackney during a monitoring period to track progress against these recommendations. They also highlighted the availability of resources through the Centre for Learning to support the Council in implementing improvements.

More generally, in August 2024, the Regulator of Social Housing issued a regulatory judgement identifying significant failings in delivery of the outcomes set by the consumer standards by Hackney Council. Since then, the Regulator has been engaging intensively with the Council to secure assurance that the necessary improvements are being made.