Ombudsman corner

By Richard Blakeway, the Housing Ombudsman

Noise is a major cause of complaints but, unlike repairs, is debated less despite its complexities.

Its impact is both human and financial, affecting residents’ mental health and costing landlords in protracted, multiagency interventions.

Our latest Spotlight report examines the issues based on hundreds of complaints and insights of over 400 landlords and residents. Despite the economic pressures, it sets out why strengthening the sector’s response to noise nuisance is essential.

Crucially, there’s a fundamental unfairness in the sector’s approach: most noise reports concern household noise rather than antisocial behaviour (ASB), yet most landlords handle it under their ASB policy.

This is unfair to both the complainant and complained about for the noise to be treated as something it’s not; and harder for the landlord to make consistent and reasonable decisions if it doesn’t have the right framework for all types of noise reports.

That our maladministration rate is 62% when the noise is non-statutory underscores this need.

The treatment of noise in the Decent Homes Standard is also limited and not reflective of modern living, and the ongoing review of the standard could address this gap.

Landlords’ immediate focus should be on prevention by updating the void standard to ensure that carpets aren’t routinely removed, but hard flooring is when there have been reports of noise; and fitting anti-vibration mats under white goods. The difference this would make shouldn’t be underestimated.

Next, landlords should adopt a proactive good neighbourhood management policy, distinct to the ASB policy, with clear options for maintaining good neighbourhood relationships.

This should include mediation, an approach that should work better but lacks confidence amongst residents because it can be deployed too late and under an ASB label.

Landlords should also consider their presence on estates given how effective it can be, and housing associations should be given the same information by councils, as they do to their management arms, to identify and mitigate any issues.

Our report also recommends ways to strengthen ASB policies too, but it is disappointing that half the cases of maladministration involved poor records. Alongside better communication, good record keeping is something the sector needs to grip. Lastly, where a resident isn’t afforded respect, neither are their complaints.

While I didn’t find evidence of actual bias in our investigations, residents’ anxieties about their reports being dismissed did come up.

This perception arose because of their age or having previously complained; and we did find maladministration in some of those cases because the landlord hadn’t taken action or thoroughly investigated.

Separately, we found noise report handlers may not be routinely listening to noise recordings submitted by residents.

Our lives are changing and our built environment is becoming denser.

Our recommendations are practical and cost-effective; despite the pressures, it’s critical landlords prioritise developing their approach.

The Resident Voice Index™ Community Action Plans

By Doug Sarney, Resident Voice Index project lead and solutions principal at MRI Software

Since Summer 2021, we’ve been surveying UK social housing residents for our Resident Voice Index™ initiative to gain an understanding of their thoughts and feelings about the issues directly affecting them.

Throughout the surveys and subsequent reports, we have seen clear themes emerging of issues that communities across the UK need support with.

Communities doing it for themselves

A core tenet of the project has always been to empower communities and out of this has come the desire not only to report the data we receive, but to communicate tangible actions that communities are doing to counter the worst of what we witness. Our Community Action Plans will showcase the problem-solving power of communities in partnership with citizen-led organisations.

With the rising cost of living leaving people with the lowest amount of spare money in almost five years, the issues that have been consistently cited by Resident Voice Index™ survey respondents only look set to worsen. From rising debt to choices around heating or eating, there’s no time left to wait for wider societal solutions. Communities are tackling these adverse circumstances by building something for themselves.

What are the Community Action Plans?

Working in partnership with community-led organisations, our Community Action Plans describe a community’s solution to local issues in a step-by-step guide. The plans break down what the project does and the issue it’s tackling, the steps to setting it up, how it’s run on a weekly basis, and the outcomes it achieves.

By adopting these guides, we hope other communities and organisations can also take some control over seemingly uncontrollable circumstances and harness the power of their neighbourhood to improve the lives of those within it.

Tackling food insecurity

The lack of access to healthy, affordable food is a topic that’s often emerged across numerous surveys - from mentions of people skipping meals or using food banks, to suggestions that communities work together to grow more communal food.

Created alongside St Ann’s Food Hub, our first Community Action Plan looks at one community’s response to food poverty and insecurity. St Ann’s set up their food hub during the first Covid-19 lockdown when mutual aid groups were springing up across the UK. The food hub buys wholesale produce with a network of volunteers to bring healthy and affordable food to the community. They do this by assembling boxes of produce that are sold and can also be donated to members of the community unable to afford them.

These boxes give far more value than that available in supermarkets and are paid for by members of the community, allowing for collective buying power to help the community’s own households and those of their neighbours.

Each box costs just £10 (for paying members of the community) and St Ann’s put together on average 60-80 boxes of fresh produce for their community each week, giving away almost 40 of those to households in need.

The Food Hub Community Action Plan is out now.

Find it here to get a food hub started of your own! Visit residentvoiceindex.co.uk for more Information.

 www.residentvoiceindex.com  www.mrisoftware.com/uk