Policy paper

Naming and shaming failing social housing landlords

Updated 22 December 2023

Applies to England

The Department will highlight poor practice by social housing landlords including on its social media platforms. This will include published findings by the Housing Ombudsman of severe maladministration, and judgements of the Regulator of Social Housing that consumer standards have been breached.

Where appropriate, the Secretary of State will contact social housing landlords to understand how they are taking appropriate steps to address the Ombudsman’s and Regulator’s findings. All social housing landlords are expected to self-refer breaches of standards to the Regulator of Social Housing.

Where social housing landlords have failed to self-refer and a breach is found, they will be contacted by ministers.

Housing Ombudsman Service: severe maladministration findings

The government will share on social media all severe maladministration findings from the Housing Ombudsman Service.

The Housing Ombudsman is independent of government and impartially resolves disputes between tenants, leaseholders and their social landlords. The Ombudsman has 2,316 member landlords representing 4.7 million households. The Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code provides a framework for high-quality complaint handling to help landlords resolve complaints quickly and effectively.

When things cannot be resolved the Ombudsman can investigate and make orders or recommendations to put things right where mistakes have been made.

In 2020/21 the Ombudsman issued a total of 3,455 orders and recommendations following investigations and made awards of compensation totalling £450k.

As part of their decisions the Ombudsman can make findings of maladministration where they find that a landlord has failed to do something, done something it shouldn’t have or caused unreasonable delays. In the most serious cases, the Ombudsman can make a finding of Severe Maladministration, such cases are published on the Ombudsman’s website and shared with the Regulator of Social Housing. In these most serious cases residents have often experienced problems over an extended period and there have been missed opportunities by the landlord to resolve them. In recent times this has often included repairs, leaks, damp and mould.

The Ombudsman encourages senior management to review these cases. Several landlords have reviewed the processes to ensure these matters do not recur. This is part of the Ombudsman’s work to share learning from complaints to improve services for residents.

Social housing landlords who have had a severe maladministration finding from the Housing Ombudsman since September 2021

You can view letters from the Secretary of State to social landlords about poor performance here.

  • Manchester City Council, published 16 November 2023
  • Stevenage Council, published 15 November 2023
  • Metropolitan Thames Valley, published 14 November 2023
  • Clarion, published 2 November 2023
  • Hyde Group, published 12 October 2023
  • Peabody Group, published 5 October 2023
  • A2Dominion Group, published 3 October 2023
  • GreenSquareAccord, published 7 September 2023
  • Onward Homes, published 5 September 2023
  • Abri Group, published 31 August 2023
  • Sanctuary Housing, published 24 August 2023
  • Newham Council, published 22 August 2023
  • Six Town Housing, published 17 August 2023
  • Stoke-on-Trent City Council, published 15 August 2023
  • Waverley Borough Council, published 10 August 2023
  • Sandwell Council, published 08 August 2023
  • Barking and Dagenham Council, published 1 August 2023
  • Southwark Council, published 25 July 2023
  • Livv Housing Group, published 18 July 2023
  • Aster Group, published 13 July 2023
  • Hyde Group, published 6 July 2023
  • Peabody, published 27 June 2023
  • Milton Keynes Council, published 20 June 2023
  • Ealing Council, published 15 June 2023
  • Lambeth Council, published 6 June 2023
  • Tandridge District Council, published 01 June 2023
  • Southwark Council, published 16 May 2023
  • Catalyst Housing, published 11 May 2023
  • London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, published 9 May 2023
  • A2Dominion Group, published 4 May 2023
  • Metropolitan Thames Valley, published 20 April 2023
  • Notting Hill Genesis, published 18 April 2023
  • Inquilab Housing Association, published 13 April 2023
  • Sovereign, published 5 April 2023
  • Westminster City Council, published 3 April 2023
  • PA Housing, published 23 March 2023
  • Cornwall Housing, published 16 March 2023
  • 3CHA, published 9 March 2023
  • Nottingham City Homes, published 2 March 2023
  • Longhurst Group, published 28 February 2023
  • Clarion, published 21 February 2023
  • Hammersmith and Fulham Council, published 16 February 2023
  • Lambeth Council, published 14 February 2023
  • Believe housing, published 9 February 2023
  • Clarion, published 31 January 2023
  • Leeds City Council, published 24 January 2023
  • A2Dominion Group, published 12 January 2023
  • Wandle Housing Association, published 10 January 2023
  • Birmingham City Council, published 12 December 2022
  • Orbit Group, published 6 December 2022
  • Clarion, published 1 December 2022
  • Lambeth Council, published 22 November 2022
  • Johnnie Johnson Housing, published 10 November 2022
  • PA Housing, published 1 November 2022
  • Catalyst, published 20 October 2022
  • Onward Homes Limited, published 13 October 2022
  • Southern Housing, published 20 September 2022
  • Thames Valley Housing Association, published 3 August 2022
  • Clarion, published 26 July 2022
  • Birmingham City Council, published 19 July 2022
  • Shepherds Bush Housing, published 6 July 2022
  • Habinteg Housing Association, published 21 June 2022
  • Stafford and Rural Homes (now Housing Plus Group), published 15 June 2022
  • London borough of Hackney, published 26 May 2022
  • Clarion, published 12 May 2022
  • Clarion, published 26 April 2022
  • Tendring District Council, published 31 March 2022
  • L&Q, published 15 March 2022
  • London Borough of Lambeth, published 1 March 2022
  • Homes for Haringey, published 15 February 2022
  • Metropolitan Thames Valley, published 25 January 2022
  • Great Yarmouth Borough Council, published 18 January 2022
  • London Borough of Ealing, published 11 January 2022
  • Anchor Hanover, published 30 November 2021
  • Abri, published 18 November 2021
  • Inquilab Housing Association, published 7 October 2021
  • Golding Homes, published 29 September 2021

Regulator of Social Housing: breach of consumer standards

The Regulator sets consumer standards which set minimum expectations for all registered providers of social housing regarding the decency of tenants’ homes, the services they receive from their landlords and how landlords should treat their tenants. The Regulator currently has four consumer standards:

The Regulator’s current remit on consumer regulation is reactive. This means they can consider information that they become aware of (either through self-referrals from landlords or referrals from third parties, including the Ombudsman) but cannot proactively monitor providers’ performance against the consumer standards.

The Regulator can also only use its powers in relation to a failure to meet a consumer standard if the ‘serious detriment’ test is met. This means that there are reasonable grounds to suspect that:

  • A breach of the consumer standards has resulted in a serious detriment to the provider’s tenants (or potential tenants); or
  • There is a significant risk that, if no action is taken by the Regulator, the failure will result in a serious detriment to the provider’s tenants (or potential tenants).

The Regulator publishes regulatory notices about breaches of the consumer standards by providers on its website which set out the reasons for its decision and the actions being taken as a result. It summarises lessons learned from all its consumer casework in its annual Consumer Regulation Review.

The government has committed to legislating to remove the ‘serious detriment’ test and enable the Regulator to introduce proactive consumer regulation and has published draft clauses to deliver this.

The government will also share on social media all regulatory notices for breaches of the consumer standards published by the Regulator of Social Housing. You can view letters from the Secretary of State to social landlords about poor performance here.

The Regulator also assesses landlords against its economic standards and is able to proactively regulate against these, seeking assurance from landlords that they are complying with the standards set out below:

Given the Regulator is able to proactively regulate against the economic standards already, government will be focusing its attention on breaches of the consumer standards. Providers are expected to continue to comply with all of the regulatory standards.