You can bring a complaint to the Housing Ombudsman Service for investigation if you have completed the Council’s complaint process (you have received our final stage 2 response) and the issues have not been resolved.
The Housing Ombudsman can also help if the Council is not responding to a complaint you made (however we do endeavour to respond to all complaints within the set timescales).
Their details are as follows:
Website: https://www.housing-ombudsman.org.uk/
Telephone: 0300 111 3000.
The majority of complaints will fall under the jurisdiction of the Housing Ombudsman, however some housing-related complaints (around allocations and homelessness) fall under the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman (LGO). The LGO are an independent service run by Central Government to make sure that Councils provide the required standard of service to their customers. The Ombudsman can investigate complaints about how the Council has done something, but they cannot question what has been done simply because someone did not agree with it.
Their details are as follows:
Website: www.lgo.org.uk
Telephone: 0300 061 0614
There may be some issues that need referring to the LGO or the Housing Ombudsman, or jointly considered by the two Ombudsman. We will advise you which Ombudsman to go to when you receive our final Stage 2 response. Summaries of the complaints each deal with are found on their webpages:
Housing Ombudsman - www.housing-ombudsman.org.uk/useful-tools/fact-sheets/which-ombudsman-for-social-housing-complaints/