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Southwark Council (202103972)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202103972

Southwark Council

15 March 2022


Our approach

What we can and cannot consider is called the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction and is governed by the Housing Ombudsman Scheme. The Ombudsman must determine whether a complaint comes within their jurisdiction. The Ombudsman seeks to resolve disputes wherever possible but cannot investigate complaints that fall outside of this. 

In deciding whether a complaint falls within their jurisdiction, the Ombudsman will carefully consider all the evidence provided by the parties and the circumstances of the case.

The complaint

  1. The complaint is about a pest infestation at the leaseholder’s property.

Determination (jurisdictional decision)

  1. 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, we have determined that the complaint, as set out above, is not within the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction.

Summary of events

  1. The resident is a leaseholder of the landlord. The property is a flat in a building of similar properties. The property is rented by the leaseholder to a tenant.
  2. The landlord is a local authority. Local authorities have a wide range of roles and responsibilities, one of which is social housing — for which the local authority acts as a landlord. Another role is pest control services. Only a local authority’s social housing role is within the Housing Ombudsman’s remit, not its other roles and functions. In this report the terms ‘landlord’ and ‘local authority’ are used to differentiate between the housing and pest control functions respectively.
  3. The resident raised a complaint with the landlord on 30 October 2020. He explained that he was “having intolerable problems” with the pest control department.” He said they were ignoring communications from him and that it had been going on for months and needed to be solved urgently.
  4. The landlord escalated the complaint to stage two and gave its final response on 30 December 2020. It said that the pest control unit had acted reasonably and that it had replied to the resident to advise him that he should arrange a pest control appointment but that he had not done so. It gave details of how to contact this Service if he remained dissatisfied.
  5. The resident brough his complaint to this Service on 21 June 2021. He explained that he was unhappy with the actions of the pest control unit and also disagreed with its policy of charging leaseholders for the pest control services, when the service was free to local authority tenants.
  6. The landlord has confirmed that the pest control service is available to all residents of the local authority area, regardless of the nature of their residency.

Reasons

  1. Whilst it was the landlord who responded to the complaint, the complaint itself was about the pest control services, and pest control is one of the local authority’s functions. The resident should have been directed to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman (LGSCO) rather than to this Service.
  2. Paragraph 39(m) of the Scheme states that the Ombudsman will not investigate complaints which, in the Ombudsman’s opinion, fall properly within the jurisdiction of another Ombudsman, regulator, or complaints-handling body.
  3. Complaints about a local authority’s actions and policies (apart from ones relating to its landlord role) are a matter for the LGSCO. Because of that, in line with paragraph 39(m), this complaint is not one the Housing Ombudsman will investigate.