Privacy notice for dispute resolution

Contact details for the Data Protection Officer

Housing Ombudsman Service
PO Box 1484
Unit D
Preston
PR2 0ET

Telephone: 0300 111 3000

On what basis do we process personal information?

The Housing Ombudsman is set up by law to look at complaints about housing organisations that are registered with us. Because we are set up by law we are allowed to process personal data from you to enable us to consider and investigate complaints. In doing so we must do it fairly and in line with the Data Protection Act 2018, ensuring appropriate safeguards are in place.

This privacy notice explains what type of personal data we might collect, from where and what we do with it.

We process personal information from the following people:

People who can use the Housing Ombudsman Scheme
Job applicants as part of recruitment exercises
Those making information access requests
Attendees at our training, webinars or other live events
Those who respond to our surveys
Members of our networks
Subscribers to our newsletters
Users of our website

Privacy notice for people who can use the Scheme

Why we collect personal information from you

We collect personal information to enable us to carry out our statutory duties as an Ombudsman. These duties include considering and investigating complaints, providing advice and information, collecting customer feedback and undertaking research.

We record telephone calls made to our 0300 111 3000 reception service and calls into and out of the Dispute Resolution Team direct dial numbers for quality and training purposes.

We also collect information from you to improve and enhance the service provided to you, such as Equality, Diversity and Inclusivity (EDI) monitoring data, feedback from surveys, analytics from communications and health and vulnerability data for the management of any requested reasonable adjustments.

What personal information do we collect about you?

The information you and others (as specified below) provide to us will be used by Housing Ombudsman Service staff to assess the individual circumstances of your complaint with the most sensitive and complex cases being prioritised for allocation in line with our Allocations Policy.

You may contact the Housing Ombudsman by:

our website
telephone - all calls to and from the Housing Ombudsman Service are recorded for training and quality purposes.
email
letter
social media
in person.

The personal information we collect will be relevant to our consideration and investigation of your complaint. We may collect personal information from you and from other sources, this information could cover:

name and address
family details
details of your complaint
photographs/videos
sound recordings
details of personal behaviour

Special categories of information

This is personal data which is sensitive and may include:

health or medical information as relevant to our consideration or investigation
equality information to allow us to review accessibility to our service:
- racial or ethnic origins
- age
- sex
- sexual orientation
- disability
- religion or belief
- marriage or civil partnership.

Access to this information is restricted.

We may collect personal information from other sources such as:

your landlord
a representative
another party to the complaint

Member landlords

We collect information from you in your capacity as a member landlord employee. This includes your:

name
business email address
business address
information about your activities on behalf of the landlord regarding the complaint

We also collect analytics information from you when we communicate with you outside of investigating a complaint e.g. informing you of changes to the Housing Ombudsman Scheme. This information relates to your engagement with our correspondence and includes:

Browser User Agent such as Safari, Firefox, Edge.
IP Address for estimated location.
date and time associated with each open and click for an email.

We collect and store this information when we correspond with you via our third party mailing system GovDelivery which is provided by Granicus.

For more information on analytics data and GovDelivery, please see the ‘Email Analytics Data’ section at the end of this Privacy Notice.

Sharing your information

Who do we share your information with?

To enable us to deal with your complaint we will also need to show some of the personal information to other people such as:

the landlord complained about
your representative
professional advisers
our outsourced reception service
service providers
the police
other ombudsmen and regulatory authorities, (see the section below on joint working)
local authorities, including social care for safeguarding purposes as per our safeguarding policy

We are also obliged to consider one off disclosure requests where exemptions in the Data Protection Act allow for this. These can include:

requests from law enforcement agencies where the information is required to prevent and detect criminal activity or apprehend and prosecute offenders
requests from Legal representatives where the information is required to facilitate legal claims or the obtaining of legal advice
requests from individuals relating to their rights of access under the Data Protection Act
requests from agencies involved in safeguarding where the information is required to protect children and vulnerable adults

In each case, disclosure will be considered on a case by case basis and a proportionate response provided.

Publication of the Ombudsman’s determinations, reporting and data sets

From 2021- 22 we will publish the following on our website:

anonymised case determinations, naming the landlord
annual landlord reports providing data on a landlord’s previous years complaint handling
quarterly reports naming landlords where a complaint handling failure order has been issued
Insight and Thematic reports, including information on trends and anonymised case studies
notification of any systemic investigation along with the outcome of the investigation will be published on our website
referrals to the Regulator of Social Housing relating to systemic investigations, potential breach of the consumer standards, non-compliance with the Ombudsman’s orders, and severe maladministration findings.

Anonymised determinations

Determinations do not normally contain particulars which are likely to identify any person if those particulars can be omitted without impairing the effectiveness of the report.

Investigation reports and determinations will be carefully checked to ensure confidentiality is maintained, particularly to ensure names are not included.

We will never publish the name of a resident or any information which, in the opinion of the Ombudsman, is likely to identify them.

Generic case details and determination outcomes in respect of findings of severe maladministration will be shared with the residents’ respective Member of Parliament although no specific personal details will be shared.

Identification of parties to a complaint

The resident

We always use resident to describe the complainant unless they are not living at the property in which case we will use the applicant or the leaseholder.

We do not use real names or initials for the resident or anyone else involved in the complaint or the matters complained of.

A complaint made on behalf of a resident by a representative or interest group/residents’ association must not use a name that identifies that representative or group.

Member landlord

A member landlord will be identified by its overall business name.

Individual staff members/officers will not be identified by name .

We do not name organisations which are providing services on or behalf of a member landlord, for example, commercial firms, voluntary organisations, local/national charities. We may refer to them as ‘the contractor’, 'the agent' or similar.

Councillors and MPs

We do not name councillors or MPs. If the resident is represented by their councillor or MP or we need to comment on a councillor or MP's involvement, we will reference them as ‘the local councillor’ or 'their MP' ( if more than one councillor we may consider referring to them as Councillor A, Councillor B etc).

Addresses

As a rule, we will not disclose addresses of the resident or those representing them. However, there may be occasion when a complaint involves one or more addresses, or it concerns a specific development. In this case, we may consider using:

street 1 or street 2 and so on
the resident is complaining about a housing development where they live.

Exceptions to publication

It is envisaged that not all decisions will be published. We have considered some defined exceptions, for example:

where the facts of the case cannot be written without a risk of the resident or others being identified
where the resident and/or the landlord raise concerns regarding identification and the Ombudsman agrees it is not appropriate to publish
where the landlord is so small that the identity of the resident is likely to be easily discoverable
a landlord who is a voluntary member is not providing a public service and so may request non publication.

Reporting

For the reporting below we will name the member landlord organisation but not identify residents:

annual landlord reports providing data on a landlord’s previous years complaint handling
quarterly reports naming landlords where a complaint handling failure order has been issued
Insight and Thematic reports, including information on trends and case studies
notification of any systemic investigation along with the outcome of the investigation will be published on our website.
referrals to the Regulator of Social Housing relating to systemic investigations, breach of consumer standards, non-compliance with the Ombudsman’s orders, and severe maladministration findings

How we protect the information

We take the security of your personal information seriously. We have internal policies and controls in place to ensure that your data is not lost, accidentally destroyed, misused or disclosed.

The Ombudsman’s employees only access your data in the proper performance of their duties.

How we store and how long we keep personal information

We scan all documents and usually destroy paper copies of the documents unless you ask us to return those documents.

All electronic documents are generally deleted three years from the date of closure of a case.

Legacy paper files are subject to destruction.

Case management workflow parties’ details anonymised after seven years.

Telephone recordings are deleted after six months.

Complaints Portal

The online portal helps us to deliver a secure information sharing and communication service, as well as enhancing the service you receive.

We will use your personal information to enable us to communicate with you via the portal for purposes such as providing updates and outcomes on complaint investigations, and sharing or requesting documentation for investigations or in response to information requests.

As a portal user, you are responsible for your login credentials, therefore It is important you keep your login information secure and confidential at all times.

Any information you disclose directly to us through the portal will be processed in line with this Privacy Notice.

The portal is delivered by Computer Application Services (CAS) Limited. To view what personal information CAS collect via the portal, please refer to their Privacy Notice included on the portal web page.

Keeping records of people who present unacceptable behaviour

In most cases people who use our service are reasonable. Occasionally, the behaviour or actions of individuals using our service makes it very difficult for us to deal with their complaint.

In a small number of cases the actions of individuals become unacceptable because they involve abuse of our staff or our process.

We keep details of people who we consider present unacceptable behaviour and who may present a possible threat to the safety or wellbeing of our staff.

We will normally tell the person when we record their details in this way. We regularly review information recorded in this way and delete it when it is no longer relevant.

Working with other organisations

The Housing Ombudsman and the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman

The Housing Ombudsman Service and the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman (LGSCO) are different organisations. The Localism Act 2011 introduced changes to the way complaints are dealt with for social housing. We have drawn up a Memorandum of Understanding as the basis of how we cooperate.

In order to carry out our roles in investigating complaints about housing we may have to disclose information to the LGSCO when we receive a complaint:

that is made to us instead of them
where the position is unclear
that is for neither party
that may involve the jurisdiction of both parties.

The Localism Act requires that we seek your consent should we need to carry out a joint investigation with the LGSCO.

The Regulator of Social Housing

The Housing Ombudsman Service also has a Memorandum of Understanding with the Regulator of Social Housing. It sets out the functions of each organisation and describes the arrangements for cooperation and communication between the two bodies in relation to their respective functions.

We may disclose information to the regulator where we think that disclosure is necessary for a purpose connected with the regulator’s functions. This may include:

providing statistical information, anonymised as appropriate, about the types of complaints we have received, highlighting particular themes or patterns arising
notification of appropriately anonymised information which, following investigation, provides evidence of potential systemic issues relating to a particular provider or providers.

Feedback surveys

It is important for us to continually improve the service we provide to you and ensure you have the opportunity to provide open and honest feedback.

When you have engaged with our service we may contact you by email and, in a small number of cases by telephone, with a feedback survey after the closure of your case.

Your feedback will be used in line with our legitimate interest to inform our understanding and help us identify and improve the service through analysis of feedback.

We will not share your personal details with any third-party marketing companies.

If you prefer not to take part in these surveys, you have the option to unsubscribe. The unsubscribe link will be included on the survey email sent to you or you can state this on the telephone at the time of the call.

Email analytics data

We use GovDelivery to send email bulletins and updates on the Housing Ombudsman Scheme to member landlords in line with our legitimate interest to effectively manage communication and obtain engagement insights.

Emails sent from GovDelivery contain web beacons which capture data about your interactions with the email. For example, when you open an email and click a link, this information will be recorded on an individual basis.

We use this information to analyse and understand how our emails are interacted with, and to inform and improve future communications with you as a member landlord to promote the service and requirements of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme.

Analytics data is stored for each email campaign directly on GovDelivery. Data access is restricted and is only accessible to the Communications Team within HOS for a period of 12 months.

Granicus employees can also access the information for support purposes and store your information for a period of 6 years after you are removed from the platform.

To view more on how this information is collected, used and stored by GovDelivery, see their Privacy Notice and Cookie Statement.

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