Clarion Housing Association Limited (202015048)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202015048

Clarion Housing Association Limited

9 June 2021


Our approach

The Housing Ombudsman’s approach to investigating and determining complaints is to decide what is fair in all the circumstances of the case. This is set out in the Housing Act 1996 and the Housing Ombudsman Scheme (the Scheme). The Ombudsman considers the evidence and looks to see if there has been any ‘maladministration’, for example whether the landlord has failed to keep to the law, followed proper procedure, followed good practice or behaved in a reasonable and competent manner.

Both the resident and the landlord have submitted information to the Ombudsman and this has been carefully considered. Their accounts of what has happened are summarised below. This report is not an exhaustive description of all the events that have occurred in relation to this case, but an outline of the key issues as a background to the investigation’s findings.

The complaint

  1. The complaint refers to:
    1. The landlord’s handling of the major adaptations to the resident’s property.
    2. The resident’s concerns about delays caused by the local authority and its appointed contractor in completing the adaptations.

Jurisdiction

  1. What we can and cannot consider is called the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction. This is governed by the Housing Ombudsman Scheme. When a complaint is brought to the Ombudsman, we must consider all the circumstances of the case as there are sometimes reasons why a complaint will not be investigated.
  2. After carefully considering all the evidence, in accordance with the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, the following aspect of the complaint is outside of the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction.

The resident’s concerns about delays caused by the local authority and its appointed contractor in completing the adaptations.

  1. Paragraph 39(m) of the Scheme states:

“The Ombudsman will not investigate complaints which, in the Ombudsman’s opinion fall properly within the jurisdiction of another Ombudsman, regulator or complaint-handling body.”

  1. The resident has expressed concern about the delay to the Disabled Facilities Grant application and subsequent adaptation works at her property which were managed by the local authority and the agency it employed to carry out the adaptations. It is outside the Housing Ombudsman’s role to investigate complaints against local authorities when they are not acting in their capacity as social landlords. The local authority is not the resident’s landlord and was not acting as a social landlord in arranging the adaptations. Therefore, we cannot consider the resident’s complaint about delays caused by the actions of the local authority or its appointed contractors. Complaints about such matters are more likely to be considered by the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman (LGSCO). Before bringing a complaint to the LGSCO, the resident would need to pursue a complaint through the local authority’s internal complaints process.

Background and summary of events

  1. The resident is a tenant of the landlord. The resident has mobility issues and requires the use of a wheelchair.
  2. The complaint has been raised by the resident and, at times, by her representative. For clarity, this report will refer to both the resident and her representative as ‘the resident’.
  3. In October 2018, a Occupational Therapy team (OT), commissioned by the local authority, completed a report which proposed several adaptations to improve the resident’s usage of her property. The OT proposed that the rear of the property should be made wheelchair accessible and include an automatic door opener, that the kitchen door should be widened to allow wheelchair access and that wall and door frame protections should be fitted on the ground floor. 
  4. The works were agreed by the landlord and confirmed in May 2019 following conversations about whether the adaptations would be suitable for the residents requirements in the long-term. The landlord’s internal records show that these works were due to be carried out by an agency employed by the local authority and would be funded by a Disabled Facilities Grant (DFG). The landlord has confirmed that the agency was responsible for completing the DFG application and arranging for the works to be completed.
  5. In June 2019, the resident raised a complaint about the length of time it was taking for the adaptation works to begin at the property. The landlord issued a stage one complaint response at this stage, although it has not provided a copy of this to the Ombudsman for review.
  6. On 15 July 2019 the agency emailed the landlord and confirmed that the DFG) application was sent to the local authority on 28 June 2019. The landlord emailed the agency to ask for an update on the resident’s adaptations on 12 August 2019. The agency responded the following day and confirmed that it was still awaiting approval by the local authority.
  7. On 23 September 2019, the landlord provided a further update to the resident and confirmed that the DFG application was submitted on 28 June 2019 and that the agency had contacted the local authority with the hope to receive approval as soon as possible. It apologised for any inconvenience and said that she would be contacted as soon as the DFG was approved with a start date for the works.
  8. The landlord emailed the agency again on 11 November 2019 and asked for an update on the status of the works. The agency responded on the same day and stated that the local authority had not yet approved the previous DFG application and had asked it to resubmit the application.
  9. On 19 November 2019 the resident enquired about the status of the DFG application. She said she had received a telephone call a month earlier to say that a meeting would take place and she would be provided with an outcome in the five days that followed. Despite chasing this on several occasions, she had not received a response. She asked the landlord to confirm whether the DFG had been approved and asked when the agency would begin the works.
  10. The landlord responded on 5 December 2019 and explained that the last communication it had received from the agency was that the local authority had asked for the DFG application to be resubmitted. It stated that it was unsure why this had been requested but it had been assured by the agency that this had been resubmitted and that this would be dealt with quickly. It did not have any information regarding the meeting but believed this may have been between the agency and the resident’s occupational therapist.
  11. The landlord’s records show that it received an email from the agency on 16 January 2020 confirming that the grant had been approved by the local authority and the works had been arranged with the contractors. 
  12. The resident asked for her complaint to be escalated to stage two on 24 February 2020 for the following reasons:
    1. She had checked the information previously provided with her OT, who stated that the local authority did not ask for the application to be resubmitted and the application was only received on 11 November 2019. This would have been two months after she had originally raised concerns about the landlord’s handling of these matters. She said that the DFG was approved on 27 November 2019.
    2. She had followed-up on the adaptation works throughout January 2020 and the landlord had said that the external ramp would arrive in four weeks’ time. She was frustrated with the landlord and the agency’s handling of these works and the length of time it had taken.
    3. She asked the landlord to provide a date for the completion of the internal and external works within the next 20 days and an explanation as to why it had taken three months from the approval of the DFG for the ramp to be ordered. She also asked for written evidence that the agency had been asked to resubmit her application by the local authority.
  13. The landlord issued its stage two complaint response on 23 March 2020 and explained the following:
    1. It confirmed that the agency was employed by the local authority as its home improvement agency. The landlord said that whilst it was consulted and gave consent for the works to be completed in the property as a landlord, it had limited control or influence over the adaptation process.
    2. It said that it had received an email from the agency on 27 June 2019 to confirm that the DFG application had been submitted.  The agency sent a further email on 13 November 2019 stating that the local authority had asked for this to be resubmitted. The landlord was advised that the DFG had been approved on 16 January 2020.
    3. It confirmed that it had contacted the resident on 18 February 2020 to inform her that the ramp had been ordered by the agency’s contractors and would take at least four weeks to be manufactured. This was around three weeks after it had been told the DFG was approved, not three months as the resident had previously advised.
    4. It explained that the agency and the local authority would be able to provide further information about the delays in the DFG process, but the landlord had not been made aware of the reasons for this. It confirmed that it did not employ and had no contractual arrangement with the agency.
    5. It said that the contractors were employed by the agency and the landlord had been told that the contractors were waiting for the internal door to be manufactured, which should be done within the next three weeks.
  14. The adaptation works and payments were reported as completed on 15 December 2020. The landlord completed a post-inspection of the adaptation works on 8 January 2021 and provided a list of outstanding works to the agency on 11 January 2021. The landlord’s records show that the agency’s contractors returned on 15 January 2021 to rectify some minor issues with the adaptation works and that the agency had called the resident on 16 January 2021 to confirm that the adaptations had been completed to a satisfactory standard. 

 

 

 

Assessment and findings

The landlord’s handling of the major adaptations to the resident’s property.

  1. The landlord’s aids and adaptations policy confirms that the landlord is obliged to comply with its duties under the Equality Act (2010) to make reasonable adjustments to a property, specific to an individual’s needs. The landlord would require an Occupational Therapist referral for all aids and adaptation requests, both minor and major. In this case, a DFG was required to pay for the major adaptations in the resident’s property, this application and the subsequent works were managed by the agency, employed by the local authority. The landlord would be responsible for maintaining, repairing, and servicing all referred and approved adaptations.
  2. In this case, the OT assessment was commissioned by the agency and local authority in line with its statutory duty in this area. The landlord has confirmed that it has no contractual relationship with the agency employed by the local authority, meaning that did not own, manage, or deliver the major adaptation process. In this case the landlord’s role was to provide permission to the local authority and their agency to allow them to carry out the work in the property. As explained above, this investigation has considered only the actions of the landlord because the actions of the local authority in relation to the adaptations would be a matter for the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman.
  3. The resident feels that the landlord has misrepresented where responsibility for the work lies and believes the landlord is responsible for managing the agency in carrying out the works, meaning that the landlord was responsible for any delays. The Ombudsman is satisfied that in this case, the responsibility for the major adaptation work and DFG application sat with the local authority and its appointed agency. There is no evidence of a contractual relationship between the landlord and the agency and following the landlord’s permission, confirmed in May 2019, all aspects of the adaptation works were managed by the agency and were not within the landlord’s control.
  4. The landlord would usually have a role in helping to co-ordinate the works to its property, but its role would be limited and all it could do would be to chase the agency and pass on any updates to the resident. The landlord has taken appropriate steps to follow-up on the resident’s application and progress of the works on numerous occasions and attempted to keep the resident informed.
  5. The resident has provided evidence from the Local Authority which confirmed that the DFG application was accepted in November 2019. However, there is no evidence to suggest that the landlord had been made aware of this approval until 16 January 2020 despite following-up on this matter with the agency on multiple occasions.  Ultimately. if the DFG was approved in November 2019, the agency would be responsible for seeing that the works were completed as the landlord had agreed that the adaptation work could go ahead. There is no evidence to suggest that the landlord was made aware that the DFG application had been approved in November 2019. If the landlord were made aware of the approval at the time, the actions it could take to progress the works would have been limited as responsibility for the work sat with the agency.
  6. The resident has also expressed concern as the local authority had stated that it did not ask for the DFG application to be resubmitted. It was appropriate for the landlord to keep the resident updated and convey the information it had received from the agency. The landlord had been told that the DFG application needed to be resubmitted and informed the resident of this accordingly. It also took steps to signpost the resident to the agency and local authority for more information regarding the DFG application and adaptation works. If the resident has any concerns about the information given to her by the local authority or its agency, she may wish to take this up with the local authority directly.
  7. There has been no maladministration by the landlord in respect of its handling of the major adaptations to the resident’s property. There is no evidence to suggest that the landlord has delayed the works and ultimately the adaptation works were outside of the landlord’s control, once it had agreed for such works to go ahead in May 2019.

Determination (decision)

  1. In accordance with paragraph 54 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was no maladministration by the landlord in respect of its handling of the major adaptations to the resident’s property.

Reasons

  1. The landlord has stated that the agency which carried out the adaptations was employed by the local authority, which means the landlord was not responsible for its actions.  The evidence provided to this service supports this position. The landlord has taken reasonable steps to follow-up on the progress of the DFG application, work with the agency and update the resident accordingly. There is no evidence to suggest that the landlord was responsible for any delays to the works or knowingly misinformed the resident about the status of the DFG application.