…I met a man who wasn’t there, he wasn’t there again tonight, I wish he’d do my FOIs.

The Housing Ombudsman’s consultation is due to close quite soon, on 16 March 2026. This feels like it has come around incredibly quickly since the publication of the government’s policy statement on Social Tenants Access to Information Requirements, or STAIRs for short.

Is there a government job where people do the acronyms? I feel like that might be my true calling.

You can get up to speed on the policy statement here. It’s about six pages and in theory it should meet the government’s aim: to allow housing association tenants (and, refreshingly, shared owners) the same access to information that local authority tenants enjoy through the Freedom of Information Act, known as FOIs.

While this sounds great for housing association tenants in theory, I was talking to a charity who recently made FOI requests to find out how many families with children or expecting mothers had been offered homes through various councils’ allocation policies. Some councils didn’t seem to know, some claimed they didn’t hold the data, some said it would take too long to find out, and one set of jokers replied that they “didn’t house children”, deliberately misreading the question to pretend somebody had asked about offering tenancies to minors.

So, tenants probably shouldn’t set their expectations of STAIRs too highly.

Unlike the archaic system for council tenants of appeals through the Information Commissioners Office, housing association tenants are getting a premium complaints service. The Housing Ombudsman can compel landlords to look again if they agree reasonable requests haven’t been reasonably met.

…He wasn’t there again today.

“We look forward to reading your consultation responses. At a time when trust is low, this is an opportunity for PRPs to turn this tide,” says Richard Blakeway, the outgoing Housing Ombudsman.

Trust is at the crux of the proposals in the STAIRs proposals. The reasons it’s at a low ebb aren’t some kind of natural phenomenon or an unavoidable side-effect of how organisations go about their day-to-day business. Trust is low as a direct outcome of leadership and organisational cultures across the housing sector.

Other work done by the ombudsman, as they point out in their 11-ish pages of STAIRs complaints consultation, has already highlighted that pretty much every single spotlight report would have been unnecessary if landlords just listened to what tenants were asking, got over their institutional inclination to act defensively or vexatiously, and came up with the information people want.

In some ways STAIRs just formalises this pretty simple ask, but in a way that’s obviously going to lead to tenants beating their heads against a wall and landlords continuing to flail around inside their own IT systems until it’s obvious it’ll take more than 18 hours to find out how many tenants they’ve got or whatever, and they can deny the request.

As usual, tenant expectations are being set conspicuously low with regard to any involvement from the Regulator of Social Housing. “The regulator has a statutory duty to carry out its functions in a way that minimises interference and so far as is possible is proportionate, consistent, transparent and accountable” – i.e. don’t expect them to be upsetting any apple carts if landlords keep their little spending secrets to themselves or tenants actually want to find out any details of the tenant influence schemes landlords always say they run but never publish any details about.

…Oh how I wish he’d go away.

So, what FOIs should tenants get ready for when the system comes into play in October 2026? Here are some of my considered and entirely serious* suggestions:

  1. How much money has (your landlord) spent on award applications and ceremonies and housing conferences?
  2. How many times have tenants asked for surveyor reports on their own home and been refused?
  3. How many times has (your landlord) paid to settle a disrepair or other legal claim instead of it going to court, and how much in total did all THAT cost?
  4. Can we see your big book of Lessons Learned and Proof You Actually Did Something About Them?
  5. What’s the budget ratio between your comms teams and staff employed directly to oversee activities related to the Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard?
  6. How much would it really cost to put in some flooring– and don’t give me that NHF rubbish about two grand per property – and who in the executive or board is going to stand up in public and explain why people fleeing domestic abuse don’t deserve to be housed in anything other than bare rooms?
  7. Which department is responsible for your STAIRs responses and how many requests do you reckon will take more than 18 hours (about five working days for most staff)?

*Pretty sure these all fall under the fairly detailed categories suggested in the government’s policy proposal.