The Housing Ombudsman has released its latest Complaint Handling Failure Order (CHFO) report, with Ealing Council amongst eight landlords failing to comply.

There was a significant reduction in the number of orders the social housing watch dog had to issue in this quarter compared to the previous one, with 25 landlords that had an order in the last period not receiving any this time. 

However, on 6 October 2023, Ealing Council was issued a CHFO due to 'unreasonable delays in a stage two response being provided'.

The Housing Ombudsman says since Ealing Council failed to comply it had to escalate it into an investigation.

Thereafter, the council did provide a stage two response to the resident.

The release of the latest CHFO report, comes as the Ombudsman makes its Complaint Handling Code mandatory by law to be followed by landlords from 1 April 2024 onwards.

Whilst there are minimal changes for the landlords who are already compliant, the Ombudsman is 'urging' all landlords to be reviewing the new Code in readiness and ensuring self-assessments, are submitted on time.

the Ombudsman say the recent report provides insights into how landlords can make sure that not only is their policy compliant with the Code, but it is consistently delivered in practice.

On the back of this report, the Ombudsman has written to the landlords with more than one non-complaint CHFO.

The landlords that did not comply with its orders are:

• Adullam Homes
• Barking and Dagenham Council
• Ealing Council
• Lambeth Council
• Lewisham Council
• Luton Community Housing
• Metropolitan Thames Valley
• Sandwell Council
• Westminster City Council

Richard Blakeway, Housing Ombudsman, said: "Most of these orders are made while the complaint is live the landlord's procedure, revealing issues that occurred in the last three months.

"We only issue a handful compared to the thousands of cases we handle and after much intervention with the landlord.

"These orders help landlords to identify where action is necessary to improve complaint handling, and with most landlords this appears to be successful.

"Ultimately, this helps complaints to be resolved earlier by the landlord itself, which is essential given the continued rise in complaints.

"As the Complaint Handling Code becomes statutory in less than two weeks' time, we are urging landlords to read this report, and its predecessors, to ensure that complaint handling compliance is seen in practice as well as policy.

"This will form a key part of our Duty to Monitor work, where we will not just take the landlord's word in their self-assessment if our casework is saying otherwise.

"It is vital landlords assess their complaints procedure as the Code becomes statutory.

"This also means ensuring its complaints team has the resources and leverage within the landlord to do its job and to ensure there is fairness for residents when making a complaint."

The Ombudsman also spoke with 27 landlords to help ensure its complaints policy was in line with the Code, following issues seen in complaints which were the most in any quarter.

An Ealing Council spokesperson said: "The council has recently updated its complaints handling process in an effort to ensure residents receive prompt responses and have their complaints dealt with properly.

"When complaints received during this transitional period were reviewed in October 2023, this one was highlighted as requiring action and was actioned immediately at that point. 

"This was an unreasonable delay in our complaints process during this transitional period." 

To read the Housing Ombudsman CHFO report from October to December, click here.

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