My communication with the Housing Ombudsman below:
Compliance <Compliance@housing-ombudsman.org.uk>
Wed, Jun 12, 9:32 AM
to Compliance, me
Dear Tina
Thank you for your email which we received on 11 June 2024. I will address each of your queries in turn below:
I am wondering about the closing date for submissions on the self assessment.
There is a deadline for the annual submission to the Ombudsman. For a landlord with less than 1000 properties, they are required to submit their self-assessments at the point they publish their TSMs or 12 weeks after their year-end, whichever is sooner. For example, if Extracare’s end of financial year is the end of March 2024, the submission will be due by 30 June 2024. If the end of year is 31 December 2024, the submission would be due by 23 March 2024.
Is there a specific format for the Annual Complaints and Service Improvement Report and the landlord Response to self-assessment. Are you happy with an A4 PDF, do you want reports reported at trustee meetings and signed?
There is no specific format for either of these documents. The self-assessment should form part of the report and is an assessment of the landlord’s complaints policy against the statutory Code 2024. Landlords will then be expected to include their 2023/2024 performance against the Code in place at that time, covering the following:
a qualitative and quantitative analysis of the landlord’s complaint handling performance – this must also include a summary of the types of complaints the landlord has refused to accept
any findings of non-compliance with the Code by the Ombudsman
the service improvements made as a result of the learning from complaints
its actions following any annual report about the landlord’s performance from the Ombudsman
its actions following any other relevant reports or publications produced by the Ombudsman in relation to the work of the landlord
The landlord may want to use these as headings within the report to create a structure. If no complaints have been received during the period the report can reflect that, but the landlord should use this as an opportunity to satisfy itself that the reason no complaints have been received isn’t that there are barriers to residents complaining or matters being dealt with informally. The report also needs to include the landlord’s self assessment against the Code and its actions following any other relevant reports or publications produced by the Ombudsman in relation to the work of the landlord, such as our Knowledge and Information Management report or Damp and Mould report.
When publishing the self-assessment as part of the annual complaints performance and service improvement report, landlords must include the governing bodies response to the report. The purpose of publishing the governing body’s response to the self-assessment is to provide assurance that the self-assessment is a true reflection of the landlord’s complaint handling. The response should set out how the Member Responsible for Complaints has scrutinised and challenged the self-assessment and how any risks identified as part of the review have been addressed.
Landlords should also include any lessons learned through the self-assessment process and actions taken as a result. The response can also highlight areas of achievement and any challenges that the landlord has faced during the reporting year. When doing so, landlords are encouraged to take an open and transparent approach to demonstrate accountability to their residents and other stakeholders. Landlords can refer to the Ombudsman’s Guidance for Governing Bodies for more information about effective involvement and assurance.
In terms of formatting, the landlord may include this in a comments section, a forward to the report, or as a stand-alone document. It is up to the landlord to decide who it is from as the governing body will differ depending on the different arrangements across organisations.
With regard to our complaint policy- it is now out of date following regulatory changes and we are waiting for the Almshouses Association to produce a new template
It is a statutory obligation that members of the Housing Ombudsman have a complaint policy that is compliant with the Complaint Handling Code. You may want to use the self assessment to highlight where the policy does not comply with the Code and make the necessary chances as soon as possible.
Really look forward to your reply, as so far, I am feeling baffled by the volume of information to look through.
We appreciate that this may be challenging for small landlords and we have run a number of webinars and produced guidance to help. You can find this here:
Complaint Handling Code Annual Submissions (housing-ombudsman.org.uk)
Finally just to flag up that we recognise that given the size of some of our landlord members, not all will have a website and we would not expect them to set one up. Instead, we are happy for residents to be made aware of the complaint policy and procedure through other means such as handbook, notice boards or posting copies of this to individual residents. When completing the annual submission question 8 asks – ‘does the landlord have a website’ – if you select ‘no’ this changes the form from asking for links to a website, to asking you to upload the relevant documents, so this can be a Word or PDF copy of the complaint policy, self assessment, annual report and governing body response.
I hope this is useful but please do not hesitate to come back to us if we can help with any further questions or clarifications.
Yours sincerely
Kirsty
Housing Ombudsman logo
Kirsty Noakes
Duty to Monitor Manager
She / her
Friday’s are my non-working day
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Preston, PR2 0ET
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