A report on changes to legislation and Government Guidance that impacts on a Social Landlord’s response to a complaint, Reading Borough Council Housing Services’ compliance with the new Complaints Handling Code published by the Housing Ombudsman, and any changes in process required. 

The Executive Director of Economic Growth and Neighbourhood Services submitted a report informing the Committee of changes to legislation and Government Guidance that impacted on a Social Landlord’s response to a complaint, Reading Borough Council (RBC) Housing Services’ compliance with the new Complaints Handling Code published by the Housing Ombudsman, and any changes in process required.  The following documents were appended to the report:

Appendix 1:  RBC Housing Service’s Complaints Handling Code Self-Assessment;

Appendix 2:  RBC Corporate Complaints Policy;

Appendix 3:  Housing Complaints Leaflet.

The report explained that the Government’s The Charter for Social Housing Residents - Social Housing White Paper in 2020 had outlined seven principles that every social housing tenant should expect from their landlord, one of which was “To have your complaints dealt with promptly and fairly, with access to a strong Ombudsman who will give you swift and fair redress when needed.”  In March 2022, as part of the enactment of the Social Housing white paper, the Housing Ombudsman published an updated Complaints Handling Code (CHC) for all Social Landlords, which came into effect on 1 October 2022.  A replacement Housing Ombudsman Scheme was also implemented on the same day, and compliance with the CHC was a mandatory requirement for membership to the scheme.

Under the Building Safety Act 2022 tenants were no longer required to go to a designated person or wait eight weeks after receiving a response from the landlord before approaching the Ombudsman.  Tenants were now able to make a referral at any time and it would be investigated by the Ombudsman as soon as the Landlord’s internal processes had been resolved.

The report also explained that a key requirement for all Social Landlords was the annual completion and publication of a self-assessment against the CHC and RBC’s Housing Services’ self-assessment was attached at Appendix A.  The self-assessment had prompted a few minor updates to the RBC Complaints Policy, information leaflet and template letters used for complaints regarding the Housing Service, including:

·     Updating the complaint leaflet and webpage to provide information on the Housing Ombudsman Scheme;

·     Updating template letters for complaints to include details on how to contact the Housing Ombudsman, including when there were disputes regarding timelines for extensions;

·     Including details of the Housing Ombudsman in tenant newsletters;

·     Regular monitoring programme introduced by HCMT to ensure quality of response, follow-through on remedies proposed and learning from complaints/ themes.

The assessment indicated that the Council was compliant with the Code in all but two areas, however, non-compliance was permissible for Local Authority Landlords in these two areas as long as they were working in line with a Corporate Complaints Procedure:

·      The timeframes in which complaints are expected to be responded to – The Code requires that complaints are responded to in 10 working days, the Council’s Policy is 20 working days.

·       The inclusion of Stage 0 – The Code states that there should not be a stage 0, but it is included as an internal complaint management step to encourage early resolution of complaints for the tenant. At Stage 0 the tenant is contacted by telephone and a follow up written response is provided. This does not replace the stage 1 if the tenant still requires a Stage 1 response.

The report added that complaints performance would now be included in the Annual Housing Update and Works Programme report to the Committee by the Assistant Director for Housing and Communities each March and the Self-Assessment would be published on the Council’s Website.

Resolved -    That the requirements of the revised Complaints Handling Code from the Housing Ombudsman and Reading Borough Council Housing Service’s associated Self-Assessment be noted.