Michael Gove is now telling tenants to complain about ‘not fit for purpose’ housing in the Levelling Up department’s ‘Make Things Right’ advertising campaign.

Social housing residents are told to firstly complain to their landlord and if there is no reasonable or final response then take their complaint to the Housing.

The national ‘Make Things Right’ campaign will feature adverts with images of leaking ceilings and black mould and are being placed across many social media and streaming platforms that include the NextDoor app, Spotify (multilingual) as well as radio stations’ advertising campaign.

The Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities’ ( LUHC) campaign will also ‘bankroll’ training for Citizen’s Advice staff in two ‘pathfinder’ areas of London and the North West.

The Housing Secretary says: “Too many social housing tenants are being let down and ignored. This government is determined to stand up for them and give them a proper voice. They deserve a decent, safe and secure home, just like everybody else.

“So we are shining a light on rogue landlords that ignore their tenants time and again and allow families to live in disrepair. This campaign will make sure tenants know their rights and how to make a complaint – giving them the confidence to go to the Ombudsman and ensure action is taken.”

The government’s social housing resident panel, made up of more than 200 residents across England, has found that 65 per cent of members’ complaints to their landlords had been met with an unsatisfactory response or lacked any resolution of issues.

The panel’s members stated some of the major issues with their landlords included the longwinded timescale of complaints being dealt with, lack of communication as well as disrespectful handling of complainants, and during ongoing complaints’ procedures some landlords had not even bothered to note down the correct information about the issues.

They also found that members were left frustrated as the landlords seemed not to experience any form of repercussion when found wanting regarding issues, and the amount of unnecessary red tape of the complaints process which they believe is deliberate.

Gove has also demanded answers from  Lambeth Council about its lack of dealing with complaints after the Housing Ombudsman reported the authority’s severe maladministration in the handling of and resolving damp and mould issues; it has called for Lambeth to immediately reform its processes and drastically improve its failing complaint handling processes.