The Governing Body statement in response to the Housing Ombudsman’s Annual Landlord Report 2025/26

Islington Council values resident feedback, which is essential for understanding residents’ experiences and driving continuous improvement in our landlord services. The Housing Ombudsman’s latest Landlord Performance Report for 2025/26 (due to be published soon) provides an important external assessment of our performance and reinforces the need to maintain a strong focus on learning, accountability and service improvement.

During 2025/26, the Housing Ombudsman recorded 123 determinations for Islington Council, resulting in 274 findings. Of these, 164 were findings of maladministration, severe maladministration or service failure, producing a maladministration rate of 65%. The report also recorded 353 orders, 100% of which were complied with within three months, and £83,986 in compensation. We are pleased to note the positive trajectory of the council’s maladministration rate, reducing from 82% in 2023/24, to 75% in 2024/25 to 65% in 2025/26, we are determined to continue this positive downward trend. Our current maladministration rate shows further improvement at 53%. Benchmarking with neighbouring boroughs and London C1 authorities for 2025/26, shows we are significantly ahead of all 5 out of 6 comparators. We recognise that these figures show both the scale of resident dissatisfaction reaching the Ombudsman and the importance of continuing to strengthen how we identify, resolve and learn from complaints.

Learning from complaints remains central to this work. Complaints provide a clear route for understanding what has gone wrong, how we can put matters right for individual residents, and how we can make wider service changes that reduce the risk of similar issues happening again. We have further improved our learning through:

• Root cause analysis – ensuring we tackle the causes of our most common causes for complaint 
• Complete escalations audit – to seek to better understand which complaints escalate to stage 2 and why 
• Closed case surveys conducted by a third-party provider 
• Working with our resident complaints panel, to get a resident view on how we can resolve complaints to residents’ satisfaction 

The latest report highlights three areas where the highest volumes of findings were made: managing relations, responsive repairs and activity, and anti-social behaviour, abuse and nuisance. It also identifies damp and mould, leaks and complaints handling as significant areas of concern. These findings align with the areas where we have focused our improvement activity and reinforce the need to continue embedding change across housing services.

• Repairs and maintenance: We are continuing to improve how we manage responsive repairs, including better communication with residents, clearer appointment information and stronger tracking of repair outcomes.
• Damp, mould and leaks: We are sharpening our processes for identifying, prioritising and resolving damp, mould and leak-related cases, recognising that these issues have a significant impact on residents’ homes and wellbeing.
• Complaints handling and managing relationships: We are strengthening the way we communicate with residents, explain decisions, manage expectations and ensure complaints are resolved at the earliest appropriate stage.
• Better resourcing of our complaints service: We are increasing capacity and improving how resources are used, with a focus on timely, high-quality responses, early resolution and stronger oversight of learning from escalated complaints.
• Continual professional development of our staff: Professional, empathetic and well-trained staff are at the heart of good landlord services. We will continue to strengthen training, induction and support so that staff have the knowledge, confidence and tools to work effectively with residents.

We have also redesigned our Tenancy Services to embed accountability and place residents at the heart of service delivery. Our small patch sizes ensure that 
residents know their local housing officer, and we gain a deeper understanding of the residents we serve. By combining learning from complaints with other resident feedback, we regularly renew our Homes and Neighbourhoods Improvement Plan to maintain our focus on delivering excellent landlord services. 

While we are encouraged by areas of progress, the latest Ombudsman report makes clear that we still have more to do. Our maladministration rate remains slightly above the national rate and the level of orders and compensation. We are committed to using this evidence to accelerate improvement, strengthen accountability and ensure that learning leads to visible changes in residents’ experience.

Our annual performance report acknowledges the challenges we have faced in meeting the expectations of the Housing Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code and the steps we are taking to comply with our statutory obligations. Although our policy and processes are designed to deliver compliance, we need to further develop our complaints management system so that all complaint stages, compliance points, learning actions and outcomes are recorded and reported consistently. This will give the council, residents and elected members stronger assurance that complaints are being handled in line with the Code and that learning is being acted on. 

Progress will continue to be closely monitored by our Corporate Management Team and relevant Executive Members, ensuring regular oversight at the most senior level within the council. Performance will also be scrutinised by the Homes and Communities Scrutiny Committee and the Corporate Resources and Economy Scrutiny Committee, with a continued focus on the areas highlighted by the Ombudsman: repairs, damp and mould, leaks, complaints handling, managing relationships and anti-social behaviour.

We remain dedicated to ensuring that every resident in Islington receives the best possible service, with their concerns addressed swiftly, effectively, and with care. We will continue to learn, adapt, and evolve in response to the changing needs of our residents, always striving to provide services that reflect the highest standards of quality and responsiveness.

Signed by

Councillor Jason Jackson - Executive Member for Homes and Neighbourhoods 
Councillor Paul Convery - Executive Member for Finance