Housing Ombudsman launches consultation on plans for 2018-19

The Housing Ombudsman has published a consultation paper seeking views and insight from landlords and residents to help inform its plans for 2018-19.

The paper provides a review of the year 2017-18 up to the end of September which shows year on year improvement in casework performance including:

• 100% of cases in our formal remit determined within 12 months
• Customer feedback targets exceeded
• 80% of complaints closed without the need for a formal investigation
• Average case time on determinations reducing and further improvements expected in the second half of the year.

As set out in the 2017-18 Business Plan the Ombudsman’s intention is to keep the subscription fee at the same level of £1.25 per unit in 2018-19. However, the consultation will help identify further improvements to the service within the resources available.

Interim Housing Ombudsman David Connolly said: “It is important that we take into account the views and insights of all our stakeholders in planning our service for next year. We want to hear the views of both landlords and residents to help us develop different aspects of our service including better access, supporting the local resolution of complaints, increasing transparency and improving efficiency. We recognise that the changing housing landscape brings challenges for the sector so we want to ensure that our service continues to support landlords and residents in resolving disputes and helps to improve complaint handling and housing services.”

The final Business Plan for 2018-19 will reflect the feedback received during the consultation.

The consultation is open until 22 December. Details of how to respond are set out in the consultation paper.