Tenants take ombudsman complaint fears to the Lords

Published by Ross Macmillan for 24dash.com in Housing and also in Communities, Local Government

A group of tenants have met with Labour Peers to explain their objections to a measure in the Localism Bill that will cut their direct access to the housing ombudsman when they have a complaint against their social landlord.

Plans in the Bill - which receives its third reading in the Lords on October 31 -will see tenants having to go through 'designated persons' i.e. either MPs, councillors or newly formed tenant panels to have their complaints heard from April 2012.

The National Housing Federation (NHF) has launched a campaign - supported by 24housing magazine - which would preserve the right of tenants to access the ombudsman directly.

This week, tenants met with Lord McKenzie, Opposition Communities and Local Government spokesperson in the Lords, and his colleague Baroness Hayter to warn them of their concerns. 

The NHF argues that the added layer of red tape will leave millions of tenants across England feeling disempowered. Due to concerns about privacy, fewer tenants are likely to bring complaints in the first place, and the extra bureaucracy could cause confusion, leading to a less successful complaints process, it argues.

Tenant Bernadette Gallagher said: 'I’m perfectly capable of speaking up for myself. If I have a complaint, I might not want my local councillor or MP involved. It should be up to me if I share my personal information."

Federation chief executive David Orr said: "Tenants should have the right to involve their local representatives in their complaints and indeed many already do. But this should be the choice of the tenant. It should not be imposed by Government diktat. Nothing could be further from the spirit of localism than this."

24dash understands a Government amendment will be tabled during the Bill’s Third reading that will preserve the right of tenants to access the ombudsman directly if the ‘designated person’ either takes too long to resolve the dispute or declines to pass it on to the ombudsman.