Housing Monthly Diary Archive

Ombudsman Matters

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Please note that individual Omudsman investigation reports are included in other relevant archive category sections.

March 1998
Independent Housing Ombudsmen

At its March meeting in Leicester, the Board of Independent Housing Ombudsmen Ltd. accepted the application of the Crown Estate to join the Scheme as a voluntary member. All residential stock of the Crown Estate in London, other than its long lease property in Kensington and Regent's Park, is covered, being some 1,500 dwellings.

The Board also approved the application from Retirement Security Ltd., which owns and manages over 1,000 very sheltered units across England.

July 1998
Independent Housing Ombudsman’s Report

The Independent Housing Ombudsman (IHO), Roger Jefferies, issued his first annual report, which revealed that he received 24% more cases since the last year of the Housing Associations' Tenants' Ombudsman Scheme, which the IHO replaced.

In his introduction, the Ombudsman highlighted the number of private landlords beginning to join as voluntary members and pointed to the positive reasons for their membership. The report also noted that the first year's subscription of 85p per unit had been reduced to 80p per unit and it confirmed the intention to limit any future increases to RPI.

The Ombudsman identified a number of issues that he raised during the year with the Housing Corporation:

• He expressed surprise and concern about the apparent unwillingness of the Corporation to publish a Leaseholders' Charter, except for shared owners. He also expressed concern at the apparent ruling that Social Housing Standards do not apply in general to leaseholders who wholly own their lease.

• He advised the Corporation that their proposed Applicants' Charter did not deal adequately with transfer applications from existing tenants.

• He also drew the Corporation's attention to the complaints received by the Ombudsman Service that discounts on original sales, either under shared ownership schemes, leasehold schemes for the elderly, or schemes where land has been sold by local authority to RSLs at low valuation, could not readily be demonstrated to have been passed on to the purchasers.

August 1998
Ombudsman Published Further Case Studies

The Local Government Ombudsman published another Digest of Cases, which included about 70 cases selected from the decisions made on complaints by the Commission during 1997 and which highlight points of particular interest. The Digest included a wide selection of cases of interest to those in the social housing sector, including failure by individual councils as landlords to:

• deal with a statutory noise nuisance from a lift in a block of flats;

• resolve nuisance caused to neighbours by tenants;

• hear, within a reasonable timescale, an appeal from a homeless family about an offer of an unsuitable tenancy; and

• have fair and consistent arrangements for dealing with transfer applications from tenants with rent arrears.

The Commission's aims in publishing the Digest are to:

• promote good local administration; and

• increase understanding of what the Ombudsman Service does and the reasons for some of the decisions reached.

Local Government Ombudsman: Digest of Cases 1997. The Commission for Local Administration in England: Tel. 0171 915 3210.

September 1998
Ombudsman Reports

• In their annual reports, the three Local Government Ombudsmen for England highlighted the fact that 4.5% of complaints investigated in 1997/98 were decided in 10 weeks, 73% were decided in 20 weeks and 90% in 40 weeks. The average time it takes to investigate complaints had fallen to 14.5 weeks, compared to 15.8 weeks in the previous year. The backlog of cases (those over 12 months old) had also been cut from 838 as at 31 March 1995 to 341 on 31 March 1998.

The annual report also showed that compliance with the Ombudsmen's formal reports had improved, with only 8 further reports being issued, compared with 21 being necessary in the previous year.

All three Ombudsmen referred to the positive response that they have received from many councils and an increased willingness on their part to offer a fair settlement of complaints. The report commented on the success of the rewritten information leaflet about the Ombudsman Service - Complaint about the Council? How to complain to the Local Government Ombudsman.

The Commission has also opened its website on the Internet, which provides access to the Commission's summary annual reports, guidance notes, the Digest of Cases and the complaints leaflet.

The Local Government Ombudsmen for England are:

Mr Edward Osmotherly (London-based);

Mr Jerry White (Coventry-based);

Mrs Patricia Thomas (York-based).

• The Housing Association Ombudsman for Scotland’s annual report was also published, which identifies poor communications between associations and their tenants as the biggest problem encountered.

Ombudsman, John Richards, praised most associations for identifying complaints at an early stage but he did express concern at examples where there is failure to identify and record complaints when they are first made, or failure to draw the complainant's attention to the procedures which they should follow to have their complaint examined properly. He concluded that delays in conveying information to complainants, and the tone of some of the communications when they do arrive, lie at the root of most of the complaints which eventually reach his office.

The report included an analysis by main subject of complaints received during 1997/98, which shows:

Repairs and improvements 20.0%;

Applications, allocations and transfers 17.5%;

Noise, nuisance, anti-social behaviour 13.0%;

Calculation of rent and service charges 10.0%;

Shared ownership 9.0%;

Estate management 9.0%;

 

Other 21.5%.

October 1998
Voluntary Members for IHO

At its meeting in Newcastle, the Board of the Independent Housing Ombudsman Scheme approved the applications for membership by a major provider of retirement housing and three park homes companies.

Retirement Care had discovered that residents on a majority of its estates wanted to have access to the Ombudsman and following its successful application, nearly 4,500 of its properties are now covered by the Scheme. Retirement Care is a specialist in providing management services to private retirement estates. It was founded in the 1980's and it is involved in 255 estates across the country.

The National Park Homes Council wanted its members, particularly those in receipt of its Quality Award, to join the Independent Housing Ombudsman Scheme. They asked three of them to put themselves forward to trial the procedure and their success may result in at least 70 other park home companies ultimately following their lead.

National Park Homes Council is a division of the National Caravan Council. It is the representative body for the Park Home industry, with some 220 parks in membership in England - containing between 12 and 15,000 homes. It operates a Quality Award scheme to maintain and improve standards in the industry. Over 70 parks are registered with the scheme, covering some 4,000 homes. Entitlement to the Quality Award is reviewed annually. The park home owners joining the Scheme this time are Haulfryn Park Homes, Anthony Bruton Leisure Ltd and Deanland Wood Park Ltd.

Membership of the Independent Housing Ombudsman Scheme is compulsory for all registered social landlords, but other landlords may apply to join as voluntary members.

January 1999
Ombudsman Reduces Subscriptions

Independent Housing Ombudsman (IHO) subscriptions have been reduced for the second year in succession. At its public meeting in Southampton, the Board decided that member-landlords will pay 78 pence per unit for the year 1999/2000, which is a reduction of 2 pence.

The reduction in the rate was possible because of the satisfactory financial position of the company, aided by an increase in the number of private landlords joining the Scheme voluntarily.

At the meeting, the Board also approved applications for membership in respect of a number of their estates from two providers of private retirement housing, being Downland Retirement Homes and Peverel - who have made IHO services available to many of their tenants.

July 1999
Independent Housing Ombudsman Reports

The Independent Housing Ombudsman, Roger Jefferies, launched his second Annual Report. Key issues raised in it include:

• The overall number of complaints made during 1998/99 fell, although a much larger proportion of complaints - 65% - were retained for investigation.

• Mediation continued to be popular and 92% of cases referred reached agreement.

• There was a growth in the use of arbitration - largely at the joint request of the parties concerned.

• Leasehold management continues to be a problem, with complaints about service charge problems representing 17% of cases retained for investigation.

• Single people (with and without children) are the largest group of complainants in every type of complaint - particularly in nuisance, harassment and rent cases.

• The average cost of each investigation conducted in-house, including external advisers, was
  £329.

In launching his Annual Report, Roger Jefferies highlighted a number of specific issues. He commented on the Government's proposal for licensing houses in multiple occupation (HMOs) and expressed surprise that the consultation says nothing about the rights of tenants to complain about the management of their tenancies or properties. This he sees as a valuable opportunity to give them those rights and a means of redress for their complaints.

The Ombudsman also challenged the suggestion that registered social landlords should be exempt from HMO licensing. Mr Jefferies feels that, just as registered social landlords are required to comply with the Registered Homes Act 1984 in respect of their care homes, so they should be required to comply with the new licensing requirements for HMOs. He commented that it is not enough to rely on regulation by the Housing Corporation.

In his speech, Roger Jefferies was also critical of the management of leasehold properties by registered social landlords. Whilst he recognises that the Government's leasehold reform proposals should be generally welcomed, he expressed concerns about the continuing exemptions for registered social landlords from the change of manager provisions and whether this can be justified.

His speech also made reference to the Tenants' Incentive Scheme and the number of complaints he has received about its administration over past years. In making reference to its replacement - the new Homebuy arrangements - the Ombudsman urged landlords to ensure that their staff who deal with applications are thoroughly briefed and that clear publicity is regularly issued.

September 1999
Ombudsmen Issues Annual Report

In their Annual Report, the three Local Government Ombudsmen for England reported that, during 1998/99, they received a record number of complaints - 15,869, being a 6% increase on the previous year. During the year, the service completed consideration of 15,653 complaints, being 2½% more than in the previous year.

Redress for complainants was obtained or recommended in 2,624 cases, representing 27% of all complaints determined.

The report also notes that compliance with Ombudsmen's formal reports of their investigations improved and there were only three further reports (where the councils concerned had failed to provide the Ombudsman's recommended remedy after the initial report) issues in 1998/99, compared with eight in the previous year.

At the end of the financial year, there were only 209 complaints outstanding, being an improvement on the 341 outstanding as at 31st March 1998.

Local Government Ombudsmen's Annual Report 1998/99.

The Commission for Local Administration in England also published another Digest of Cases. The cases selected highlight points of particular interest.

Local Government Ombudsmen: Digest of Cases 1998 - Tel: 0171 915 3210.

January 2000
Satisfaction with Ombudsman Service

An independent survey was published, that indicates that people who have complained to the Local Government Ombudsman in England during 1998 were more satisfied with the service they received than the complainants who were surveyed three years earlier.

Conducted by Mori, 1,000-plus interviews were carried out by telephone with a random sample of people who had used the Ombudsman service during 1998. A similar survey was previously carried out to evaluate satisfaction levels from people who had complained to the service in 1994.

In this latest survey:

• 61% of those interviewed expressed satisfaction with the time it took the Ombudsman to deal with their complaint;

• 58% felt that they had been kept well informed of the progress of the investigation of their complaint; and

• 50% said that they were satisfied with the way their complaint was dealt with.

Seventy per cent of those using the service found investigative staff helpful when talking to them on the telephone and 66% found them efficient. All of these levels are higher than those obtained in the survey of 1994-complainants.

A full copy of the report is available on the Ombudsman's website at: www.open.gov.uk/lgo.

January 2000
Independent Housing Ombudsman

At the Independent Housing Ombudsman Board's budget meeting, it was agreed to hold subscription rates at 78 pence per unit for a further year.

The Board also noted that: Complaints to the Ombudsman during the past year had increased steeply by over 50%.

More than 1.5 million homes are now covered by the scheme. The rapid rise in numbers of units being covered by the scheme is to a great extent due to the size of the stock transfer programme from local authorities to registered social landlords. There is an increasing number of private landlords who wish to join the scheme.

The Board further noted that the Independent Housing Ombudsman service had been asked by DETR to run pilot Tenancy Deposit Schemes, aimed to resolve disputes about the return of deposits in the private sector. The Government has agreed to fund a two-year pilot project in five areas across the country, which aims to ensure that private tenants receive deposits back promptly when they are due or, if there is a dispute, then this can be settled by the Ombudsman service. The pilot schemes were to be run in:

• Birmingham and the West Midlands

• Brighton and Hove

• Central London

• Merseyside and West Lancashire

• Norfolk

• Norwich.

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