Housing Ombudsman sets out lessons from root cause analysis to ‘inform responses to new issues’

We have released our latest Insight report, providing an overview of the common themes from our further investigation reports.   

Where our data identifies reoccurring service failings, we engage with landlords to understand what is causing the issues. We then identify whether it is policies, processes, systems, or governance, and oversight.  

These investigations are designed to improve landlord accountability for delivering better services, helping to prevent complaints.  

In this Insight report, we have highlighted common themes, causes, and lessons. We have focused on what sources of evidence we used to arrive at our findings and recommendations. We also share lessons from the landlords and how they made improvements.  

Landlords can use this report to consider how to discover potential weaknesses in their service provision. It can support their own approaches to identifying root causes of repeated failures and strengthen learning from complaints, a principle of the Complaint Handling Code. This can help inform landlord approaches to improved service delivery and providing assurance to the Member Responsible for Complaints. These also help as landlords prepare for new requirements such as Awaab’s Law and the incoming Decent Homes Standard.  

We looked at 4 key areas that made up the most consistent types of failing.  

In recognition of the greater emphasis placed on landlords' ability to conduct root cause analysis, our Centre for Learning are offering free Continuing Professional Development (CPD) training. We are providing a 3-tiered approach including an introduction, intermediate, and advanced course on root cause analysis. This will be available to all member landlords from Autumn 2026.