Supporting residents to communicate with their landlords

The Housing Ombudsman is an executive non-departmental public body, sponsored by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, with a mission to improve landlords’ services, and residents’ lives, through housing complaints.

It provides an independent, impartial, and free service for social housing residents, making the final decision on disputes between residents and landlords that are registered members of the scheme. This includes residents and leaseholders of social landlords (housing associations and local authorities), and voluntary members (private landlords and letting agents).

The Housing Ombudsman needed a trusted partner capable of producing high quality multilingual videos in nine different languages (Arabic, Bengali, Gujarati, Simplified Chinese, Spanish, Sylheti, Tagalog, Tamil, and Urdu) to create a critical resource that would help residents who were not proficient in English to understand how to make a complaint, quickly and confidently.

This required more than just ‘translation’: it demanded culturally accurate scripts, on-camera linguists, post-production support, project management and a coordinated filming process that had to be located onsite at their London offices.

A dedicated Project Manager was assigned to oversee all the detailed elements involved, from sourcing expert translators, to selecting linguists who could both narrate and appear in the videos, to the management of the shoot and post-production process.

Coordinating nine multilingual presenters across the two tightly scheduled filming days required meticulous planning, time management and smooth onsite direction to ensure the brief was kept and that every video was produced to a high-quality standard.

Post-production support ensured that every language version was double checked for both linguistic quality and presentation standard, before being submitted for client approval.

The videos were delivered on time, on brief and with consistent clarity across all chosen languages. They are regularly used by tenants and residents, helping overcome language and cultural barriers which were previously a real source of friction.

By supporting those with diverse language backgrounds to better understand their rights, and show them how to take action, the Housing Ombudsman has now extended its reach, reduced barriers to engagement and delivered a more inclusive service across the UK.

For any organisation looking to understand and address the language needs of their audience, the Housing Ombudsman serves as a fantastic example. They have increased accessibility, engagement and trust in their services by ensuring they can be understood by a wider audience.