Housing Ombudsman issues recommendations to landlords on best practice for improving knowledge and information management

The Housing Ombudsman has shared insight into how social landlords have implemented its recommendations on Knowledge and Information Management (KIM), adding that an effective approach in this area is “fundamental for providing decent homes and services”.

The Ombudsman said: “The issue comes up in a range of decisions that the Ombudsman makes and getting it right can be the foundation of effective service delivery or complaint response.”

This follows an evaluation of the impact that the Ombudsman’s ‘Spotlight Report’ on KIM has had on the sector.

The original report, released in May 2023, made 21 recommendations.

Key findings from the follow-up analysis include:

• 26% of respondents said they were having issues accessing the information required to inform decision making, compared with 56% in the original survey in 2022
• of these respondents, 81% said issues related to accessing information impacted on their ability to meet complaint handling timescales
• most respondents cited poor quality or vague information, and databases not synchronising or talking to each other as the main barriers – both 19%
• 89% of those that had undergone system changes following the report had experienced positive improvements
• 80% of respondents reported that KIM was either very or quite important to their organisation

The evaluation also revealed that issues facing landlords included a lack of senior buy-in and contention around the value of KIM.

Finally, the evaluation shared some success stories from landlords who implemented the Ombudsman’s advice, such as the implementation of automated appointment reminders.

Richard Blakeway, Housing Ombudsman, said: “We recognise that landlords face many challenges navigating knowledge and information management with low budgets.

“Records made by operatives every minute will impact the experiences of residents – both positive and negative – and in aggregate will inform the decisions made in the boardroom about the landlord’s future. In turn, these will shape the view of risk in the sector and even national policy priorities.”

He added: “Since the publication of our report in 2023, the need for good KIM has only increased, with it being central to the new consumer regulation.

“Agreeing and implementing a KIM framework effectively can take time and resources and we understand that landlords only have a finite resource. However, from speaking to landlords, it is clear that effort invested can be seen in both incremental gains and longer-term benefits.

“Challenges around data need to be considered in both the strategic sense and the practical application day-to-day at operational level. We hope that in sharing some of the improvement actions and innovative approaches, we offer encouragement to those landlords who are working to meet the recommendations.

“Ultimately understanding residents and homes better will allow landlords to better target interventions, an improved experience and fewer complaints.”

Harry Rodd