Page 31 - Solving Housing Disputes

pilot be successful, we recommend that, long-term, the HDS be established
as the specialist housing dispute resolution body, consolidating the
current, fragmented architecture into one dispute resolution service.

2.30 In subsuming pre-existing redress schemes, we envisage the HDS would carry
out the functions those bodies currently hold beyond dispute resolution. This
would include working with housing providers to develop their policies,
procedures and complaint handling processes, producing reports on systemic
issues within housing and feeding back information and data on problem type
to housing regulatory bodies. The use of a digital portal and collecting data on
dispute type and repeated problems would help the HDS discharge this
function.
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Piloting

2.31 We recommend the HDS pilot be phased and take place in two locations,
one metropolitan, one rural. The sites selected should have a significant
number of housing disputes in any given year and ideally, one site would be
an advice desert, where an HDS pilot could reintroduce housing advice. The
pilot site would require buy-in and oversight from the local judiciary,
practitioners, advice agencies, local authorities and housing providers.

2.32 Phase 1 of the pilot would require an array of skill sets, but not all those
eventually required to populate a national service. The pilot would be for an
entirely new service, so resources would need to be diverted from the pre-
existing institutional structure, for example with HDS officers brought on
secondment from the fee paid judiciary, advice and law centre sector, local
authority services, possibly from other housing providers and staff from pre-
existing redress schemes.

2.33 We recommend that multiple channels be available for parties to contact
and initiate disputes with the HDS, but that any pilot should include the
necessary digital elements for the service. These would include a digital
case management system for HDS officers, a digital filing system and

67 There would be merit in transferring to and/or conferring on HDS the role of maintaining registers of,
e.g. gas safety, notices on commencement of tenancy, choice of deposit scheme, database of convictions
and banning orders, HMO and other licences and the register of fair rents.

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