Resident Panel Charter

Purpose of the panel

The panel gives residents a chance to help develop our service. It also gives us direct insight into housing issues and experiences with landlords and our service.

This helps us to understand how we can improve our service, raise awareness, and increase understanding of our work.

It also means we can hear directly from members about their experiences.

Membership

The Resident Panel is made up of residents of landlords that are members of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme. You can find out if your landlord is a member on our membership page.

Residents can apply to join the Resident Panel every 3 years. We review applications to make sure the panel fairly represents residents who can use the service.

We ask for personal information about where you live, your age, disability, ethnicity, and tenure. By providing this information we can make sure that the panel is representative of the diversity of residents living in social housing across England. We keep your personal information secure and never share it with anyone else. We do set out the demographic of the panel on this page.

Privacy policy

We appoint members for 3 years and they can reapply at the end of each term. Once a panel member has done 3 terms, they cannot reapply.

We continuously review how members engage with panel mailings and activities. Every 6 to12 months, we contact members who have not engaged with us to give them the opportunity to remove themselves from the panel. If we do not hear back from these members, we will automatically remove them.

You can leave the panel at any time. We just ask that you send us an email to tell us you want to leave and, if you want to, your reason for leaving.

Panel membership does not affect your right to complain to your landlord or bring a complaint to us for investigation. However, we will not discuss your complaint at meetings or via dedicated resident panel channels such as the hub or our inbox.

Your role as a member

Membership on the Housing Ombudsman Resident Panel is a voluntary opportunity to hear about our work and help us ensure that we involve residents.

You should not use your panel membership for political gain or to influence others through political campaigns.

Members should not refer to themselves as an employee or representative of the Housing Ombudsman Service as this is a voluntary role.

Meetings

The Resident Panel meetings happen online. Meetings will vary between day sessions and evenings.

We hold meetings on a Chatham House principle, which means members of the Housing Ombudsman Service may refer to the discussions, but will not name individual contributions.

We will invite members to respond to our formal consultations, including (but not restricted to) the annual Business Plan and any call for evidence surveys.

We will also invite members to give feedback through surveys, polls, and questionnaires.

How often we meet

The Resident Panel will meet in full at least twice a year.

We will send invites via email with a link where you can register to join. We will try to give you as much notice as possible ahead of a meeting date.

How meetings work

If we have an agenda for the meeting, we’ll aim to send this at least a week before. After the meetings, we’ll email any slides or follow up notes to all panel members.

Who runs the meeting

A member of the Communications team or specialist from across the organisation will chair the meeting.

Housing Ombudsman colleagues run breakout sessions and discussions.

How we communicate with panel members

We send meeting and activity updates to members through a direct mailing list from our secure mailing system.

Members can contact us directly via email at residentpanel@housing-ombudsman.org.uk

We also have a dedicated Resident Panel hub where we host panel activities including surveys and meeting recordings. Only panel members can access this hub.