Written evidence submitted by Housing Ombudsman Service [DPH 042]

Inquiry into disabled people in the housing sector

I wanted to share some insight from my service to support your committee’s important inquiry into disabled people in the housing sector.

During my time as Housing Ombudsman I have witnessed a profound shift in who is coming to the Ombudsman, where we are now expecting to undertake 10,000 investigations a year. Reports of disabilities are being overlooked are now far more common than they used to be.

In the last year, 15 of 62 residents (24%) whose complaints resulted in severe maladministration, had a disability. In all 15 cases, there were issues with making reasonable adjustments or adaptations.

Recently the most common theme we are identifying in our casework is insufficient regard for the Equality Act 2010. Many of our orders and/or recommendations in cases involving residents with disabilities include ensuring the landlord takes steps to understand, and adequately train its staff to follow, its obligations under the Act as well as complying with – and in some cases reviewing – its reasonable adjustments policy.

In one determination published in August, we ordered a landlord to pay compensation of nearly

£13,000 after a resident had to undertake adaptations himself for his disabled son, after waiting 18 months for the landlord to progress the works.

This theme was also reflected in a call for evidence we undertook this year for our upcoming Spotlight report on these issues; we plan to publish early next year. Of 1,275 residents who responded, we found that 58% said they considered themselves to have a disability, and of those, 19% said their landlord had made reasonable adjustments for them.

While 5% of residents responded that they had not told their landlord about their requirements or otherwise had not asked for any adjustments, a significant 68% - more than two-thirds - said that their landlord had not made any reasonable adjustments despite being asked to.

We are developing our data so we can gain a deeper insight into the issues disabled residents contacting our service are facing and will write again with further information as the inquiry progresses.

Finally, given the issues I have seen in my casework, to support disabled people, it is vital for provisions around disability adaptations to be reflected in the new Decent Homes Standard (DHS). Alongside the new DHS, a long-term investment strategy for existing homes must be a priority for government alongside building new ones.

October 2023