England’s biggest social housing providers ignore official complaint warnings

Several of the largest social housing providers in England are persistently ignoring official warnings from the housing ombudsman over how to improve their handling of tenants’ complaints – and the situation is getting worse.

Landlords such as L&Q, Southwark Council and A2Dominion Group, who are responsible for 142,000 affordable homes, have failed to address issues over their delayed responses to tenant complaints and giving the required information to the ombudsman.

Richard Blakeway, the housing ombudsman, says that in just three months, his office issued 43 ‘complaints handling failure orders’ to these landlords, and a record-breaking 18 have not been addressed.

‘Exceptional for us to issue a failure order’

Mr Blakeway says: “It is exceptional for us to issue a failure order and every one comes after several attempts to engage the landlord.

“For a landlord to receive several and not comply, indicates its complaints procedure is not working as it should.

“The result is residents continually waiting for redress and landlords missing opportunities to put something right sooner.”

He adds: “It is vital landlords assess their complaints procedure as the Complaint Handling Code becomes statutory.

“This means ensuring its complaints team has the resources and leverage within the landlord to do its job.”

Did not comply with the ombudsman’s orders

Other landlords that did not comply with the ombudsman‘s orders include Alpha Housing Co-operative, Arneway Housing Co-operative, Haringey Council, Reliance Social Housing C.I.C, Barking and Dagenham Council, Aves Housing, Ash-Shahada Housing Association, Polish Retired Persons Housing Association, Havering Council and My Space Housing Solutions.