Housing Ombudsman's new power to issue Good Practice will focus on relationship management

Good Practice is a power introduced by the Social Housing (Regulation) Act 2023 and has been developed through consultation with residents and landlords. It will provide examples of where landlords have got things right. The Housing Ombudsman released a consultation at the beginning of 2024 asking for views on possible topics to cover in Good Practice publications and, following 163 responses, it was decided that the first edition will focus on managing relations with residents. This first guidance will be released later in 2025.

The guidance will look at maintaining effective relationships and restoring relationships which have broken down. The Housing Ombudsman’s press release of 9 January comments that The Grenfell Tower Inquiry report brought into stark focus the tragic impact this can have, with ‘relations increasingly characterised by distrust, dislike, personal antagonism and anger… The result was a toxic atmosphere fuelled by mistrust on both sides.’ 

Richard Blakeway, Housing Ombudsman; “Good practice will be a valuable tool for landlords to test approaches and improve using the insights of complaints. As with all learning from complaints, the right culture and behaviours will produce the greatest benefits rather than a tick-box exercise".  

The consultation response states; “Good Practice guidance aims to establish a framework to help the landlord problem solve in a challenging area that causes complaints. It will come with a recommendation that landlords pro-actively self-assess against it and develop improvement plans… What it will not do is provide a ‘copy and paste’ policy for landlords drafted by the Ombudsman”.

For further information, please contact Victoria Smith or Kerri Harrison.