The Housing Ombudsman has recently launched a new season of
podcast episodes aimed at providing more insight on the Housing
Ombudsman's casework, and to share best practice.
Previous podcasts have explored various topics such as damp and
mould and disrepair claims, and the latest episode looks at the
Ombudsman's strengthened Complaint Handling Code.
In this latest podcast the Housing Ombudsman explores some
important changes and new requirements in the Code. The
fundamentals of the Code remain unchanged, but it has been
strengthened to further improve complaint procedures, based on
feedback from both residents and landlords. These include
clarification on reasons for excluding and/or not escalating
complaints, on providing as many methods as possible to raise
complaints and on responsibility for complaint handling.
The Podcast also discusses new requirements on publicising the
Code and the Housing Ombudsman Scheme and undertaking
self-assessments against the Code on an annual basis as well as
expectations on governing bodies involvement in complaint
handling.
Joining the Housing Ombudsman Richard Blakeway in this episode,
are Dave Simmons, Sector Development Lead, and Rebecca Reed, Head
of Insight and Development, together with special guests Louise
Holt, Head of Business Services at Tpas, and Gill Mooney, Head of
Customer Engagement at Community Homes. They share examples of how
landlords used the self-assessment exercise as an opportunity to
improve complaint handling and make sure that the process was as
robust as possible and with strong resident involvement.
This latest episode and all other episodes are on the
Housing Ombudsman's website.