The Housing Ombudsman is looking for your feedback

Date published: 21st October 2021

The Housing Ombudsman Service has launched a consultation on their proposed corporate plan for 2022-25 and they are looking for the views of residents to make sure that their plan is set up to best serve you.

The plan is set within the context of an unprecedented increase in the volume of casework and major change in the social housing sector. The Ombudsman have experienced significant increases in demand with a 139% increase in enquiries and complaints in the year to date compared with 2020-21, plus a 65% increase in cases for formal investigation.

Externally, the implementation of the Social Housing White Paper and future policy changes to improve access to complaints are likely to sustain increasing volumes of casework.   It reinforces the changing role and importance of complaint handling and sets some ambitious goals for the next three years.

The plan aims to respond to the increase in complaints that landlords and our service are receiving, setting out ways they will work across the sector to strengthen complaint handling at a local level, sharing learning to improve services and potentially prevent complaints. 

The consultation document focuses on their four strategic objectives with a brief introduction to each plus their priorities over the three years and the key activities for year one. The final section focuses on their proposed measures of success and approach to the subscription fee based on expected demand across the three years and asks for your views. 

In the consultation document respondents are asked to give their views on the four values based strategic objectives and the activities planned for the first year plus the proposed measures of success and approach to the subscription fee based on expected demand for our service. 

The consultation closes on 12 November 2021 and full details are set out in the consultation document which you can find here.