The Ombudsman’s role in social housing – familiar, but evolving

For social housing providers, the role of the Housing Ombudsman is well understood: independent, impartial adjudication of complaints once a landlord’s internal process has been exhausted.

What has changed in recent years is not the remit, but the influence of that role.

Through published determinations, findings of severe maladministration, thematic reports and wider orders, the Ombudsman now has a material impact on how complaint‑handling culture develops across the sector. Complaints are increasingly treated not as isolated disputes, but as indicators of organisational capability, service quality and learning.

What is changing in the 2026–27 Business Plan — and why it matters

The 2026–27 Business Plan does not represent a change in direction, but it does reinforce several important realities for housing providers.

• Growing complaints: The Ombudsman has confirmed that its caseload has increased by around 500% over the past five years and remains significantly above pre‑2020 levels.

• The same KPIs: The Business Plan retains broadly the same KPIs. This continuity reflects what the Ombudsman describes as a “stabilise” phase: maintaining pressure on timely resolution, quality outcomes and efficiency, while preventing further growth in the backlog. For landlords, this signals clarity rather than flexibility - the benchmarks for good complaints handling are well established and unchanged.

• Learning and reducing demand at source: A core objective of the plan is to improve complaint handling at landlord level so that fewer cases need to escalate. The Ombudsman explicitly links effective local complaint handling, better use of insight and clearer evidence of learning to its ability to reduce overall demand on the service. Landlords are expected not just to close cases, but to demonstrate how complaint data is being used to prevent recurrence and improve services.

• Higher fees - Alongside this operational focus, the Plan confirms a phased increase in landlord membership fees. For 2026–27, the chargeable fee will rise from £8.03 to £9.64 per property - an increase of approximately 20%. The Ombudsman has been clear that this reflects the cost of managing sustained complaint volumes, and has committed to earlier consultation and further review before any additional increase in 2027–28, with future changes linked to progress on complaint reduction across the sector.

 Taken together, these changes reinforce a consistent message: complaint handling remains highly visible, resource‑intensive and closely scrutinised, and landlords are expected to evidence control, learning and assurance as standard - not in response to escalation. 

How does Aareon help housing providers be 'Ombudsman ready'?

Many serious Ombudsman findings do not arise because landlords lack policies or intent. They arise because organisations cannot evidence what happened. Common weaknesses include delays that cannot be justified, fragmented records across multiple systems, incomplete communication histories, and limited evidence of learning or follow-up action.

HomeMaster and ActiveH Web are built to address these vulnerabilities directly. Both platforms provide a consistent, auditable foundation for complaint management - structured processes, strong evidence trails and a clear path from complaint to organisational learning. 

1. Structured, policy-led complaint handling

Both platforms enable complaints to be managed through configured policies, stages and actions - aligned to the Housing Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code - rather than as ad‑hoc cases. Complaints, compliments and suggestions are logged consistently and progressed through defined steps with deadlines, ownership and validation built in. Across both platforms, landlords benefit from:

• Clear stages and prompts for required actions, with configured timescales and escalation alerts to prevent missed touchpoints

• Templates and guidance supporting consistent, professional resident communications throughout the process
• KPI reporting to track performance, compliance and workload, providing assurance to managers and Boards

2. Evidence, audit trails and “showing the working”

A recurring Ombudsman theme is that landlords must demonstrate what happened, why decisions were taken, and what was done as a result. Both HomeMaster and ActiveH Web are designed to make this straightforward:

• A single case record captures stages followed, actions taken, decisions made and correspondence - a complete, defensible chronology from first contact to resolution

• Supporting evidence - documents, photographs, digital forms - can be attached or linked directly to the complaint record
• Related information from across the wider housing management system, such as repairs history, communications and tenancy details, can be referenced to provide full context

Crucially, Mobile Working strengthens this audit trail by enabling evidence to be captured at the point of service delivery. Field staff can complete inspections, repairs follow‑ups and tenancy visits using mobile workflows — capturing photos, notes, signatures and updates in real time (or offline), with everything synchronised back to the core system.

All of this makes it significantly easier to respond to Ombudsman enquiries and internal audits with a clear, consistent record - reducing rework and the risk of findings based on gaps in evidence.

3. Learning, root cause analysis and complaint prevention

HomeMaster’s Enhanced Quality Standards enable landlords to proactively assess property condition and failure risk, identifying issues through automated inspections and scheduled activities before they escalate into formal complaints.

ActiveH Web’s integrated CRM capability enables analysis of case data to surface repeat issues, trends by service area or location, and emerging risks. This supports a structured learning loop: agreeing actions, assigning owners, and monitoring whether changes reduce repeat complaints and escalation over time.

Together, these capabilities support the Ombudsman’s objective of reducing demand by improving outcomes upstream, rather than simply managing complaints as they arise.

Built for confidence, not crisis management