Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what steps people can take to escalate a complaint where the Housing Ombudsman has (a) acknowledged but not provided further response to an individual initiating a formal complaints process and (b) not responded to an official complaint from an hon. Member on the lack of response to their constituent.

The Housing Ombudsman resolves disputes between social housing residents and their landlords. The service is free to residents, independent of Government and impartial. The Housing Ombudsman Service receives a high volume of cases and is working to deal with them as quickly as possible. In 2020-21, the average time taken to complete an investigation was 5.2 months, down from 5.8 months in 2019-20.