What are you supposed to do in this scenario? It’s a good question, and I’m sure many residents have felt isolated and worried about the lack of communication and / or support for their social housing. Social housing should always be a safe and secure environment for all residents, that is cared for respectfully and responsibly by those landlords.

While people could argue that more could be done as a sector to combat this issue, that also wouldn’t be fair on the social housing associations, landlords and service providers that are committed to combating issues such as slow response times, first-time fixes, and damp and mould.

One major challenge for landlords is the omni-channel relationship between residents and landlords. Residents can now raise issues at a landlords offices, online through a portal, via a chatbot, over the phone, with housing officers and more. Ensuring all this information in one place and up to date has certainly proved a call for the sector with many unintegrated legacy systems still in use.

Specifically in our area of expertise we still see many landlords with customer portals that do not present real time information to residents and that do not update Housing Management Systems and CRM systems in real time. We believe that is a customer raises a request via any channel, e.g. over the phone, it should be visible on the portal straight away, and vice versa if a customer raises something like a repair on the portal and then phones up the call handler should be able to access that information.

(Photo: Photo of worried tenant reporting issues with their social housing accommodation)

Fortunately, the government have stepped in to try and fix social housing complaints for good, as seen in their recent campaign, which has already ironed out and publicised the complaint processes that can be taken by tenants who have any issues with their social housing. There are now 2 definitive steps that must be taken by tenants, alongside a recommended third step that should always be upheld by those supporting and living in social housing:

1. Making the initial complaint to landlords

If tenants find themselves in the precarious position where they aren’t happy with service from their landlord, they should bring this to their attention and raise any quarrels they have. Some of these could include:

• Anti-social behaviour
• Repairs and maintenance issues
• Health and safety problems

In the past, tenants have been worried about getting penalised for making complaints in the fear of losing their tenancy, however the government recently confirmed in their campaign that this would not be the case and recommends anyone to speak up who is struggling with their current living conditions.

Tenants are not to be penalised for making any complaints, and rightfully so! Alongside this, it was also confirmed recently that any landlord will typically go through two stages when responding to complaints, and each stage takes around 10-20 working days for them to respond.

(Photo: Social landlords are entitled up to 10-20 working days for each step of the complaints stage)

Having seen the campaign’s objectives, revealing the numbers associated with the time taken for landlords during the complaint’s procedure, is no doubt, a step in the right direction. However, it could be perceived that the stated timeframe still doesn’t favor the tenant, especially when you consider the seriousness of some of the common complaints raised in social housing. 

Nonetheless, tenants can now be reassured if they don’t receive a response straight away. But what happens if tenants don’t like the response they receive after waiting this period of time?

2. Make a formal complaint to the Housing Ombudsman

If tenants aren’t happy with the responses provided by their landlord, the government currently offers their Housing Ombudsman Service (HOS) which anyone can use, that is essentially an executive non-departmental public body that is sponsored by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities.

Once complaints are escalated to them, the Housing Ombudsman will then then investigate into matters while remaining completely impartial to determine how fair landlords have been.

How successful has the campaign been?

The “Make Things Right” campaign launched in March this year and ran until April, but since it’s launch, how successful was it? And most importantly, is it now easier to make things right for residents facing challenges with their social housing?

While it’s hard to pinpoint the accuracy of success in this circumstance, it is evident that more is being done to make things right for residents by the UK government. As time goes on, tenants are being given more control and are being provided with streamlined processes to raise concerns and complaints to the relevant authorities. 

(Photo: The logo which was used for the UK Government’s “Make Things Right campaign)

On April 4th, 2023, the Regulator of Social Housing announced its second wave of consumer inspection pilots that is planned to be taking place in April 2024. This will not only require social landlords to carry out regular inspections, but it will also provide further protection for tenants and hold landlords more accountable for any challenges being faced by residents.

Further to this, the Regulator of Social Housing has also introduced the Tenant Satisfaction Measures, whereby all social landlords must collect data from their tenants about the quality of their services. This means more progress towards new and improved consumer regulation. Repairs and complaint handling will now have data that corresponds to any challenges being faced – all of which need to be submitted to the regulator each year. This will undoubtedly provide further protection for tenants.

In summer this year, it is also expected that the regulator will pave the way for new consumer regulations surrounding defined standards that must be upheld by landlords for any type of social housing.

For more information on this, please see the official press release.

Conclusion

After these developments, tenants can now expect a fairer, safer and more comfortable living experience, reassured in knowing that the government are proactively working towards an improvement of quality of life for all social housing residents in the UK. 

The newly outlined expectations should improve how social housing complaints are monitored as a whole, improving slow response times that still affect the sector.

Despite not fully being able to link the recent advancements in social housing regulations to the campaign itself, I’m sure that we can all agree, these are all steps in the right direction when it comes to promoting the common challenges faced by tenants in social housing.