Richard Blakeway, the Housing Ombudsman is urging the housing sector to get to grips with social injustices. His call for evidence is looking for both residents, advice agencies and landlords to take part in surveys for his investigation, which will establish three areas of best practice:
- What it means to be vulnerable in social housing and what is an appropriate response by landlords
- What effective communication looks like and how this could help service better outcomes
- Whether there are areas (either service or demographic) where there are repeated patterns of poor service response.
He has chosen this topic after a recurrence of these issues in many of their cases, including severe maladministration findings where landlords fail to fulfil their obligations around human rights, including the Equality Act or to adhere to their vulnerable persons policy.
“This report will look to shed light on these issues and look at where landlords have got this wrong, but also crucially where they have got it right. Both will provide strong learning opportunities for the sector.”
For further information and to give evidence see website.=
The call for evidence closes on 3 August 2023