In the Observer today:
Leading private providers of social housing in Britain have been made to pay out only a few hundred pounds on average in financial penalties for severely mistreating tenants, the Observer can reveal.
An analysis of every decision made by the housing ombudsman, the primary regulator of social housing in Britain, shows that across the 2,907 rulings it made in the past three years, the average financial penalty for housing associations was just £445.
Housing associations are privately owned nonprofit companies that run 63% of social housing in the UK. They have recently come under increasing scrutiny and the number of complaints about serious disrepair have skyrocketed in the aftermath of the mould-related death of toddler Awaab Ishak in December 2020.
The two-year-old died after his family’s housing association, Rochdale Boroughwide Housing, repeatedly failed to treat endemic problems with damp and mould in their home.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/dec/31/uk-housing-ombudsman-failing-to-fine-housing-associations-for-mould
Typically Anglocentric, The Observer seems not to know that there is a Scottish Public Services Ombudsman which deals with complaints about social housing.
The former Glasgow Herald carefully hides that detail in its headline:
Social housing complaints probed by ombudsman hit record high
Disappointingly, The National has the same wording.
Scottish Housing News, intriguingly given its title, does have this and only this:
A search for cases in the Scottish media, in the last year – ‘Scotland social housing claims ombudsman‘- finds only this in the Falkirk Herald:
Falkirk Council: Rebuke from Ombudsman after poor handling of Bantaskine man’s complaint but this was a complaint from a private home-owner about new building of affordable homes and not from a social housing tenant.
Statistics?
The Scottish ombudsman reported around 350 housing-related complaints for 2022/2023, but these are not broken down into social and other types. In the same period, the figure in England for just social housing complaints was 6 590, pro rata, around twice as many as for all housing-related complaints in Scotland.
Sources:
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
Excellent work.
I live in a house, built for and administered by a Scottish housing association (HA). We were given a Scottish Secure Tenancy (lifetime secure) and made to feel that, as a tenant, we are in partnership with the HA. We have meetings, consultations, to gauge how we as tenants and they as our administrator are doing.
Any problems, issues or repairs are dealt with that day or the next.
First class set up. So good I think I’ll forward an email to Jack, Sec State and the newly appointed housing minister, Lee Rowley (who?). Similar to Humza’s offer to assist with sorting out England’s NHS strike problem. Look North for the solution to your problems, your headache, Scotland can be your aspirin.
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Scottish Gov building or renovation 6,000 houses a year. 17,000 build by private builders. 50,000+ people die in Scotland. After a long (and happy life?). 78 average life expectancy. Enough homes are built in Scotland on average. Some houses are empty. No available beside employment or relatives.
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Huh???
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