Housing Ombudsman: Enabling Early Dispute Resolution
Mike Biles, the Housing Ombudsman, explains how his office has recently reviewed its core processes which it hopes will result in a new, better quality and more efficient dispute resolution system – one that 'enables early and fair dispute resolution in housing'
“Ombudsman bites dog” might be said to be an arresting headline on the basis, presumably, that the converse is the more predictable and expected consequence of human-versus-canine dental activity. So, announcements that an ombudsman was proposing to be “fair” or that the housing ombudsman’s jurisdiction involved “housing” might not be exactly scoop-worthy. However, a caption that focused on “enabling”, “early”, “dispute resolution” is more likely, I hope, to engage interest.
For the past year we have been engaged in a fundamental review of our core process to ensure that the Housing Ombudsman Service is fit for its purpose. We began by articulating, in a revised mission statement, that our purpose is that of “enabling early and fair dispute resolution in housing”. We shall implement these changes by the beginning of April 2008.
Enabling
It is not our role to “drum up trade” or prolong interventions as part of an ombudsman job-creation programme. We are committed to helping housing providers and their residents to settle grievances and conflict in order to sustain positive relationships between them. In consequence, our enabling role includes encouraging local settlement as well as providing prevention and other training to providers and residents alike. It also involves a customer care approach that recognises the diversity of users of the Service as well as finding out what they and other stakeholders expect from it and then shaping it to meet their needs.
Early
In our revised process we are seeking to give more prominence to completion of complaints and disputes at the earliest appropriate opportunity. This will require careful and attentive exercise of discretion depending on factors such as availability and complexity of evidence, clarity of issues, needs of users, and the potential for highlighting good and bad practices in housing management and adding value in terms of sharing a “lessons learnt “ approach with the whole of the sector.
Dispute resolution
We shall be extending the effectiveness of my powers, as Ombudsman, to deal with disputes as well as individual complaints using a range of appropriate dispute resolution mechanisms. Under the Scheme approved by the Secretary of State that sets out my powers and duties I may recommend alternative dispute resolution to complainants and member landlords at any time during or at the end of an investigation. Moreover, I may establish arrangements for resolving disputes with the consent of the parties whether by the use of mediation, arbitration or otherwise. Whether or not I decide to reject a complaint, in addition to my determination, I may also recommend other ways of resolving it as I consider appropriate including mediation or arbitration. My present dispute resolution portfolio includes powers to adjudicate on the papers; adjudicate with a hearing; arbitrate, conciliate; mediate; and make an early neutral assessment.
Process re-engineering
Reviewing our casework process so that it becomes more patently a dispute resolution process was a key strategic aim of our business planning in the context of a stated objective to achieve overall improvements in service delivery balancing quality, cost and speed. As it has been a review of our single most important process, however, it has impacted on all our staff and managers, our support systems, and customer care and service standards. It will also lead to a sea-change in ethos and attitude as we seek, increasingly, a more proactive interaction with users of the Service.
The strategy was not achievable in isolation. It has required re-definition of teams, roles, and responsibilities, a new workflow process, a new database to record data, track resources, maximise access, and manage performance, and new targets and performance measures. Linked to this, we shall have re-defined the roles and person specifications of line managers and conducted audits of our organisational management capability, capacity, and systems. Taking account of increases in costs and volumes, we are already forecasting an overall cost per case efficiency of 4% (down from £603 to £578) and, where intervention is by way of investigation, a 38% fall in the cost per case at determination.
Improved systems for data and people management within an activity-based costing framework will enable us to demonstrate more clearly not only our cost- effectiveness and value for money but also greater transparency in the dispute resolution process in terms of what we are doing; how we are doing it; how soon we are doing it; how many completions are occurring at each stage in the process; how long each completion takes at each of those stages; how much it costs; and how we might be able to resolve disputes earlier, more quickly, and more cheaply.
We shall no longer have an evaluation team and three casework teams. Instead, we shall have multi-functional dispute resolution teams containing the skill levels required for the activities involved in the dispute resolution process. These teams will manage the entire process, from initial enquiries to completion at the earliest appropriate point. They are being developed to ensure support for a single, clear process based on purpose and flexibility to cope with varying levels of demand. Each will have the right balance of skills to match the requirements of the process and will capitalise on the strengths of working together being solution-focused and operating with increased autonomy. We are confident that this will provide us with a robust framework within which to manage fluctuations in the dispute resolution teams themselves together with the ability to recruit from a wider pool.
We have been carrying out the preparatory work to clarify the role and purpose of the services provided at the ‘front’ end of our dispute resolution process, before formal complaint registration. Three key elements have been addressed :
- clarification and streamlining of the role of ‘gateway’ for cases that need dispute resolution by way of investigation.
- development of a comprehensive and consistent service to users to
include:
- Sign-posting to advice services, advocacy services, other forms of appropriate dispute resolution, other relevant bodies such as the regulator, and other Ombudsmen.
- advice from us about our role and processes.
- internal complaints procedure advice to landlords on good practice in complaints handling.
- assistance to complainants addressing accessibility issues by providing an improved service by taking complaints over the telephone from complainants who have difficulty bringing their complaints to us in writing.
- accessibility during our intervention by providing a more responsive service to parties wanting to talk to us about their on-going issues.
- dispute resolution before ‘formal complaint registration’ which
will include:
- advice and assistance to parties on specific complaints during landlords' internal complaints procedures. This will put emphasis on trying to promote resolution by providing advice to either landlords or complainants that may help them to pursue or to progress a complaint through the internal complaints procedure or to understand how we would approach a particular aspect of a complaint.
- promoting resolution as opposed to assisting to progress the complaint through landlords' internal complaints procedures represents a fundamental change in our approach to intervention at this stage.
- use of mediation and other forms of appropriate dispute resolution as alternatives to dispute resolution by investigation once jurisdictional criteria are established.
Volumes
We shall be developing improved measurement of volumes throughout the dispute resolution process to enable us better to manage demand. The change in our focus will require us to build the capability to record completions achieved early on in the process, particularly those occurring before formal complaint registration. We shall be collecting the necessary data that will enable us to set new key performance indicators and targets.
Quality
We will continue to measure our performance against the casework (dispute resolution) quality standards. Once we have established a benchmark through our internal quality and process audits we shall be able to plan year on year improvement.
Timescales
We shall be recording the timing of all of our outputs not merely those that are subject to formal investigations. More proactive pursuit of dispute resolution before the formal complaint registration (the start of the ‘investigative process’) will result in cases being completed within the dispute resolution process before a point that is currently recognised as a part of our current casework process. In effect, we are positioning ourselves to resolve some disputes before they reach what we have hitherto defined as our investigative process. This is a major benefit of the new dispute resolution process as it offers the opportunity to resolve disputes, where appropriate without the need for costly or lengthy intervention. We expect to see a shift in the volume of complaints resolved at the end of a full investigation, towards resolution earlier in the process. Additionally, we are anticipating a significant reduction in the average time taken to complete cases subject to investigation. This will be achieved through streamlining of the process and identification of cases appropriate for earlier resolution.
Cost
Our change agenda has been, and will continue to be, informed by another of our business plan objectives which is to develop financial reporting systems that provide evidence of cost effective service delivery. This activity based costing approach will be complimented by another business plan objective which is to develop an activity based management system. By taking these approaches we want to be able to demonstrate that our proposals will achieve best value by investing efficiencies achieved through the dispute resolution process review back into Raising awareness, extending access, promoting understanding, early dispute resolution, and customer service improvements.
Together, these changes amount to a major shift in the emphasis of our process and the culture of our organization to enable us to provide a service to users and stakeholders that is more proactive and more empathetic.