The Housing Ombudsman has released its latest Spotlight report, Relationship of Equals, calling for a Royal Commission to create a long-term plan for social housing after finding that current approaches for the sector are not working for residents with a vulnerability.

The report assesses what it means to be vulnerable in social housing in 2024, what “vulnerable” means and how social landlords can better respond to the needs of those residents.

Acknowledging that the term “vulnerable” is imperfect, the Ombudsman has sought to define and understand better what it means throughout the report. This includes that some vulnerabilities may be short-term and include areas like grief and financial distress. The report makes the case that there is a need for human-centric provision of services, and an individual approach to a range of delivery methods.

The report also calls for a statutory definition of vulnerability and a renewed definition of general needs, alongside a duty to cooperate between agencies such as health bodies and social landlords.

At this virtual workshop, you will hear direct from the Housing Ombudsman about the key findings of their investigations into damp and mould issues, including some practical recommendations for action across all levels.

As always – there will be plenty of time to ask questions and share your approaches and experiences.

Why attend?

To find out more about the Ombudsman’s findings and recommendations for the sector, in particular:

• Implementing a vulnerability strategy
• Testing the policy in practice against the 3Rs – recognise, respond and appropriately record vulnerabilities
• Implementing a specific reasonable adjustments policy
• Carrying out a “Resident of the Future” forecast for the next ten years
• Staff training such as Dementia Friends, and training on customer care, mental health, learning disabilities, and sight and hearing loss
• Undertaking a review at Board level about the organisation’s ‘approach and barriers
• Ensuring awareness and accessibility to the complaints procedure.

This session is essential for everyone involved in service delivery, complaints handling as well as specialists in equality and diversity.

It will take you through what you need to know and understand and what to do to put things right.

Victoria King, Sector Learning and Development Lead, The Housing Ombudsman Service

Victoria King is the Sector Learning and Development Lead at the Housing Ombudsman Service. She joined the Service in January 2023 having worked for 6 years at the UK Health Security Agency in Global Health and Emergency Preparedness Resilience and Response. Victoria has experience in various Learning and Development roles, including Financial Services Complaints and as a course tutor in A Level Criminology. Victoria is part of the Quality, Engagement and Development Department, and is part of the team developing the Housing Ombudsman Service’ Centre for Learning, which will share learning from complaints and drive positive complaint handling across the sector. The function also provides insight into service provision from themes and trends in complaints to facilitate sector learning and a positive complaints culture for landlords and governance.

Zoe Miller, Compliance and Systemic Investigations Manager, The Housing Ombudsman Service

The Housing Ombudsman Service provides independent, impartial and fair dispute resolution for nearly 5 million households in England. Through resolving disputes effectively and promoting positive change across the social housing sector, we improve residents’ lives and landlords’ services.

As Compliance and Systemic Investigations Manager for the Housing Ombudsman, Zoe Miller leads a team carrying out systemic investigations into the wider and deeper issues driving complaints and ensuring compliance with membership requirements of the scheme and the Complaint Handling Code, providing recommendations to improve the social housing sector through the learning from complaints.

She undertook the evaluation of the Ombudsman’s Damp and Mould Spotlight report, which resulted in the publication of the follow-up report in February 2023.

If you are unable to attend an event or public training course, please let us know in writing (email is fine) at least 48 hours before. Please email [email protected]

Otherwise, a cancellation fee of £60 plus VAT will be chargeable.

If you are using a package place to attend and do not inform us within the agreed time frame, then a place will be taken to cover your non-attendance.

Cancellations must be made in writing, and will be acknowledged by HQN Limited.