Housing Ombudsman Annual Submission

[Elaine Winter]

Hi again, (Just an update as to where I am now!)
I started this thread back in October when I first discovered I needed to carry out this submission to the Ombudsman. I had no idea what I was doing and I got some marvellous responses and help, particularly Ros at Taunton Heritage Trust.
With an extension from The Ombudsman and this help I managed to complete the submission and upload the relevant documents to our website. I thought that was the end of it until April 2025 when it all has to be done again!
Believe it or not I then received an email 4 months later saying I had two errors I needed to correct and they gave me ONE week to do this.
The errors they claimed were that

The landlord’s self assessment has not been completed on the April 2024 version of the form!
AND, they had been unable to locate the supporting information on the landlords website!

I couldn’t believe they had had my submission for 4 months and then expected me to deal with this, and respond within a week. As it turned out the second point about the information not being on the website was untrue and the first issue, is the version of the form I used is missing some points at the end!
Hardly worth worrying about you would think? I emailed them back asking for an extension, I had an apology for the second point but was told I still needed to do transfer the self assessment to the new form. I did point out that I had used a form that had come up from following one of their links and I also politely asked that, as we are now almost into our next submission could I work on getting that one completed and uploaded correctly. However I have still been told I need to do this, and have one more week to do it!
I too feel that I would like to recommend withdrawing our membership. I feel the Housing Ombudsman has no understanding of who we are. Like Linda above, if a resident has a problem they tell me and I deal with it, if for some reason this didn’t happen the residents know they can speak to the trustees. We have a clear complaints policy and any major issues would be discussed at a Trustee meeting.
As Trevor says perhaps us working together we can get something changed and, at least help each other out.
For that reason I am writing this now just to make people aware of further issues that can come up and to make others aware of all the problems, and the totally ridiculous expectations of the Housing Ombudsman. It can’t just be Almshouses either, there must be lots of smaller landlords trying to deal with this alone.
The Housing Ombudsman has offered no help, I was signed up for their Webinars which they then cancelled, their emails do not state clearly who they are from, and it takes them 4 months to check a submission but they then want a response from us within a week!
I could go on!
Good luck to anyone still needing to complete this, and don’t be afraid to ask for help.

[JacquiLewis]

We have decided to withdraw from HO membership for now. The work required is not sustainable as a small charity with largely co opted (did not choose to do this) Trustees.

[Debbie Beck]

I’m assuming you weren’t registered as when I tried to withdraw a couple of years ago they advised that we are a mandatory member of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme by effect of the 1996 Housing Act. Organisations which have been at any time registered with the Regulator of Social Housing but subsequently de-registered remain in the jurisdiction of the Ombudsman.

Our records show that your organisation de-registered with the Regulator 23 March 2004, this means that you remain a Social Housing provider under the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction unless your accommodation falls into one of the following categories:

• Open market rent
• Student accommodation
• Care homes
• Asylum housing
• 0 Units owned or managed

[JacquiLewis]

Fortunately we are not registered, and I believe we have never been registered. I guess they will let me know if there is a problem!

Jacqui

[Tina LL]

The Housing Ombudsman have updated their website for logging in and submitting the complaints self assessment. Some charities (like ours) haven’t yet been issued with new details to log in. Apparently the new details are being sent out to charities in phases

[chawke]

Hi Elaine,

I too submitted our full report using the documents provided and like yourself received an email giving me a week to respond. We have since decided to end our HO membership.

We were once a registered provider but as we had never received any of the below grants they sought legal advice and we were able to leave.
The grants in questions were:
Homes & Community Agency grant (section 17 of the housing act 96)
Social Housing Grant (section 18 of the housing act 96)
Housing Association grant (section 50 of the housing act 88, section 41 of the housing act 85 or section 29/29A of the housing act 74).

I was speaking to a lovely lady from the membership team called

I have fed back our concerns to the HO.

Thanks,

Clare

[Julian]

A number of our member almshouse charities have been in communication with us expressing their concerns about the onerous requirements of the Housing Ombudsman Annual Submission. Our Chief Executive, Nick Phillips and I have therefore arranged to meet the HO team at the end of this month when we will be proposing that the process is reduced and simplified as far as possible in order to achieve proportionality for almshouse charities. Julian Marczak, Head of Member Services, The Almshouse Association

[Tina LL]

Hi Julian,

When you meet the HO, please can you mention the excessive nature of the information on the HO training site too. The annual submission seems nothing compared to the huge amount of repetitive training modules to complete.

Tina

[Euan Kennedy]

We are Registered Social Housing Providers and so have no choice but fill in their forms, which I hope to do by the end of May, much helped by others who have already responded on this Forum. I learn from the AA that Nick Phillips, the AA Chief Executive is meeting with the Housing Ombudsman Service at the end of this month, and I do hope that some positive result comes from this encounter. For us, with eight almshouses, and for many others like us, these requirements are hugely excessive, and what is so serious, if not amended, likely to put people of considering to act as trustees. It is really disgraceful that this great bear of a body acts to burden so many with huge time consuming extra work, likely to achieve, in most case, absolutely nothing that was not already being achieved. How about asking for a Residents Satisfaction Survey instead of all this?

Euan Kennedy

[JEGATClerk]

I submitted our return on 30th April.Just in time for the deadline. However on Friday I received a threatening email from the housing ombudsman compliance team saying that I had nor submitted and had 5 days to respond or action would be taken against us. I logged back on to the housing ombudsman website which said that I had already submitted. I sent a firm email back and this morning got an apology but we have had so many incorrect correspondences from the housing ombudsman service including incorrect deadlines and this latest incident. Each comes with a threatening letter/email. Has anyone else experienced this and could the Almshouse Association collectively complain for us?

[Tina LL]

I haven’t had any threatening emails/ letters. I note that the deadline for small providers is now 6 months after the year end date

[William Clemmey]

Emails from the Housing Ombudsman do come across as abrupt and just giving a week to action. They are however, open to delays if you respond to them.
Initially we were in trouble for not completing a Performance Compliance review which we put together and put onto the website.
Then over Christmas they asked why we had not also submitted our Housing Ombudsman Complaints self assessment. We had fortunately completed this 24 page document last March so were able to ask for a delay and then put it onto our website and we are now compliant.
This year we have until the end of September to submit all the updated documentation which means that it can go through our committees.
The irony is that we do not receive any complaints.

[Karen Morris]

Dear Members

Please see news update regarding The Almshouse Association meeting with the HO at https://www.almshouses.org/news/housing-ombudsman-complaints-procedure/

[Euan Kennedy]

I have just completed our submission to the HO, and agree with Lina Russell that it is a huge waste of time, and I have
told them so. I have engaged the AA in this and a woman called Kirsty Noakes of the HO, who writes intelligently, and
I see that another on this forum has corresponded with her, but the best that is offered is a review, which the AA
are seeking, but in two year’s time.
What makes this worse, is that the HO, unlike many other Government bodies, is obviously well resourced, and so they
have no genuine excuse for imposing the inappropriate “one size must fit all” approach.
I asked the HO to whom they were accountable and it is the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.
They also have a complaints facility, on which, Ms. Noakes informs me, no one has complained. It is my intention to
alter that, at least by one, and invite others to follow!
Members may have seen in the Summer edition of the AA Gazette on page 11, that there is the possibility for Registered
Providers who have received grants from the Homes England to de-register, and grant a mortgage to that body. Our
trustees have decided to wait and see if the AA has any success in reducing the current burden, and if not, we will
de-register.
Euan Kennedy – Chair – Hibbert Almshouse Charity – Clapham – London SW4

[clerk.stjohnswilton]

So, so accurate!

I contacted some apparatchik at the HO Service, who had whinged that I had apparently ‘jumped the gun’ by submitting my completed Self-Assessment Form a whole two weeks early.

I replied that they were lucky to get it at all, as I had been close to losing the will to live as I completed what I considered to be a passive-aggressive waste of time. Honestly – 24 pages of ‘Have you mentioned this point (and that point, and the other point) in your Complaints Policy?’

I begged them to save everybody time and effort and simply put out a Model Complaints Policy, tell everyone to adopt it (suitably adapted with their own names, addresses and contact details, ie like the excellent TAA Complaints Policy template), and then ‘manage it by exception’.. That is, we would confirm that we had adopted the model policy – and, if not, say why not.

End of. Job done in 5 minutes.

I do, of course, know that what I suggested won’t change anything as the apparatchik said as much. The HO service ‘had no plans to change their procedures’! And she then sent me on my merry way with several PDF information bulletins – presumably so I could re-educate myself away from thinking such heretical thoughts as I had suggested.

Nick Stiven
clerk@stjohnswilton.org.uk

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