The Housing Ombudsman – who presides over all social housing – has revealed a huge surge in what it calls “severe maladministration findings.”

The Ombudsman says the reports apply to 163 social landlords and “paint a challenging picture of social housing complaints which has seen a huge spike due to poor property conditions, legislative changes, media attention and the inquest into the death of Awaab Ishak.”

There are 91 landlords with a maladministration rate above 50 per cent with 25 landlords being above 75 per cent.

The Ombudsman issued 146 Complaint Handling Failure Orders last year, mostly for failing to progress complaints in line with its Complaint Handling Code, with 73 per cent of those being for landlords with over 10,000 homes.

Most worryingly, says the Ombudsman, is the overall trend in the sector, with a 323 per cent increase in severe maladministration findings, a 40 per cent increase in maladministration findings.

In terms of what social housing tenants were complaining about, property condition was once again the leading category, with the Ombudsman making almost 2,000 findings where the failure rate has increased dramatically from 39 to 54 per cent this year.

The Ombudsman also found a 52 per cent maladministration rate for health and safety complaints.

London continues to be where the Ombudsman makes most of its determinations, even accounting for the quantity of social homes in the region. It had the highest maladministration rate and accounted for 77 of the 130 severe maladministration findings last year.

Richard Blakeway, Housing Ombudsman, says: “Our Annual Complaints Review provides a unique and sobering overview into social housing complaints in this country.

“While the statistics reflect a picture of poor practice, they also reflect the increased pressures we know that social landlords are facing with a combined housing and cost of living crisis.

“However, despite some notable efforts, what our data shows is a fundamental gap between some of the services landlords deliver and the reasonable expectations of their residents. Too often residents with disabilities or mental health needs are falling between those gaps. Too often the basics not being done properly, with straightforward communication or record keeping being missed leading to problems becoming more severe. 

“This is leading to residents being treated unfairly and experiencing financial detriment or losing the enjoyment of their home.

“As part of the Social Housing Regulation Act our powers have increased as we will soon be issuing wider orders to help landlords improve their policy and practice in key areas where we see potential for repeated failings.

“Next year, we will also be looking at developing good practice under our Centre for Learning and strongly encourage governing bodies to consider the review and what further action they can take to improve the outcomes for their residents.”