Blakeway: Set to face MPs
The current housing ombudsman, Richard Blakeway, is set to become chair of the Office for Legal Complaints (OLC), which is the board of the Legal Ombudsman.
The Legal Services Board’s recommendation of his appointment has been approved by justice minister Sarah Sackman, and is now subject to pre-appointment scrutiny by Parliament’s justice select committee next month.
Subject to this, he will succeed Elisabeth Davies, whose term of office ends on 31 March after six years.
Mr Blakeway has been the housing ombudsman since 2019, leading an expansion of its role and powers as part of wider regulatory reform of social housing. He has served two three-year terms and last summer was extended for a further year to 31 July, but he confirmed last month that he would then be leaving the role.
He will take over an organisation that is receiving more complaints than ever [1] while struggling to reduce the backlog of cases already in the system.
It is hoping to secure a 12% (£2.4m) increase [2] in its current £20m budget – opposed by the Law Society [3] – while in December the Legal Services Board expressed “significant concerns [4] about the viability” of the current Legal Ombudsman scheme.
According to its 2024-25 annual report, the housing ombudsman has also been facing higher casework volumes.
Mr Blakeway wrote that it was trialling methods of earlier resolution, targeting interventions to improve local complaint handling, and exploring digital opportunities and process improvements in its service.
He also stressed the importance of sharing the learning from its casework through an expanded ‘centre for learning’, with more than 11,000 housing professionals registering for CPD.
In an article for Housing Today magazine earlier this month, Mr Blakeway said, in comments that could equally apply to lawyers: “Apologising can be very personal. It requires a degree of vulnerability to be shown by the person making it. I know some senior leaders who have felt uncomfortable with this move…
“Given the imbalance of power with residents, saying sorry for mistakes is especially important for social landlords.”
Before joining the ombudsman, he was chair of the Homes for London board and appointed deputy mayor for housing when investment and land regeneration powers were devolved to the Greater London Authority.
A former chair of the Ombudsman Association, Mr Blakeway currently sits on the Administrative Justice Council and the board of the British Library. He was once an adviser in the Number 10 policy unit.