By Richard Blakeway, the Housing Ombudsman

Our latest Spotlight report focuses on knowledge and information management, where poor records often impede both an effective response to residents on the frontline as well as sound strategic decision-making. One of the issues it highlighted was vulnerabilities: perhaps an imperfect term, but one that seeks to highlight the wide range of individual circumstances landlords need to know to ensure their response is effective. This will be the focus of our next Spotlight report.

You can see the issue clearly in our casework. Where a landlord has responded well, it’s often recognised an additional need such as a disability, and responded accordingly, whether adjusting a service response, improving its communication or providing appropriate redress. Conversely, our severe maladministration findings, whether they concern general repairs, anti-social behaviour or damp and mould, evidence the detriment of getting it wrong. Increasingly I’m seeing residents refer to mental health. I’m seeing GPs and schools writing to landlords concerned about the property conditions of the resident or their children. But the records are blank, the letters can be left unanswered, and the landlord-resident relationship deteriorates further.

“Too often the household’s needs aren’t recognised, recorded or responded to, despite it having a material impact on how the landlord’s services respond”

This isn’t to stigmatise social housing – it’s an incredibly diverse, vibrant tenure. But it’s a reflection of the high threshold to be allocated general needs housing and the reality that, for some time, the concept of general needs has been misleading. Nor is it to ignore that these issues may also require a multi-agency response. But landlords need to accept their responsibilities and act accordingly.

It’s a reality that these issues are no longer the preserve of specialist providers, and our casework indicates that councils and housing associations need to urgently develop their approach and services. Too often the household’s needs aren’t recognised, recorded or responded to, despite it having a material impact on how the landlord’s services respond. The residents themselves are being clear with the landlord but the landlord isn’t always listening.

This can range from not knowing a resident required an adapted toilet, for over a year, through to ignoring for several months a safeguarding enquiry from a school concerned about the skin condition of a child living in poor property conditions. Mental health, safeguarding and reasonable adjustments are areas in which I’ve seen common failings.

The Spotlight report will establish three areas of best practice:

• What it means to be vulnerable in social housing and what’s 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.

It will build on our individual findings where landlords can fail to fulfil their obligations around human rights, including the Equality Act, or adhere to their vulnerable persons policy.

Our call for evidence is open now, and we welcome your views on this difficult and sensitive area.

Social landlords have a proud history of tackling social injustice and this housing crisis speaks to new social injustices. It’s time for the sector to rise to this challenge.