Flagship Housing Group Limited (202113145)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202113145

Flagship Housing Group Limited

13 October 2022

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 is about the landlord’s handling of the resident’s request for permission to install a charging point for an electric Motability vehicle.

Background and summary of events

2. The resident has been an assured tenant since 1 April 2019, occupying a 3-bed house. She was known by the landlord from the outset to have a mobility-impairing disability. On 5 March 2021 she requested permission to install a charging point for a Motability electric vehicle. She said that Motability’s contractor would install the charging point, funded by a grant though this may not cover all of the works required.
3. The resident chased the landlord for a decision on 31 August 2021 and again on 1 September, stressing that she was a “Blue Badge” holder who needed the vehicle because of her mobility issues. The resident confirmed that she had now placed an order for the vehicle, in what she considered the reasonable expectation of permission being granted, and not wishing to delay further because of the long waiting time between order and delivery. At this point the resident formalised a complaint about both the delay in reaching a decision, and the lack of intervening communication.
4. Permission to instal the charging point was refused verbally on 3 September 2021, the landlord saying that the cable running from the proposed charge point to the car, would constitute a trip hazard across a public footpath. The landlord issued a stage 1 response rejecting the complaint on 8 September 2021.
5. The resident escalated the complaint to stage 2, saying the delay was unreasonable, and the decision itself ignored consequences of the delay. Those consequences, she said, were that she had signed a binding three-year contract for the vehicle believing permission would be given, and had missed the opportunity to secure a preferential electricity tariff tailored to electric vehicle users. She said she was told by the landlord’s Senior Electrical Compliance Manager (SECM) that the real reason for refusal was reluctance to set precedent. Saying that the landlord had ignored her disability needs, she alleged discrimination. She also suggested ways to resolve any health & safety risks, and complained that the landlord had not considered such options.
6. On 4 October 2021, the landlord’s stage 2 and final response apologised for the delay in communicating the decision but upheld it, again refusing permission and stating that no solution could be found to enable installation without creating a health & safety hazard.
7. In her subsequent complaint to the Housing Ombudsman Service, the resident repeated that the landlord had not properly addressed its delay in making and communicating its decision, or the consequences of that delay. She also challenged the decision itself on the basis that the health & safety hazard was avoidable but no ways of avoiding it were considered, though she had suggested several.
8. Since the resident’s complaint to the Ombudsman, the landlord has reviewed and reversed its decision, identified a way of installing the charging point while avoiding the perceived risk, and has itself done so. Installation was completed on 12 May 2022.

Assessment and findings

9. The Ombudsman will only consider matters included in the resident’s complaint to the landlord. On first appearance this would only include the delay and lack of communication originally complained of. However, in this case it is also fair to consider the initial decision (the refusal) in itself, and the complaint that the landlord did not look at ways to avoid the identified risk. The Ombudsman can see that the resident also brought her dissatisfaction with this to the landlord’s attention; a matter she was unable to challenge at stage one, due to the delay in providing a response.
10. The Ombudsman cannot consider or determine whether the landlord’s initial refusal amounted to disability discrimination in law, or whether the requested permission amounted to a reasonable adjustment under the Equality Act 2010. It can and should, though, consider whether the landlord itself considered or had proper regard to those questions, as this is relevant to both its communication with the resident, and its delay in reaching the final decision.
11. It is clear from the landlord’s evidence of its own internal discussions, that it did have a genuine and entirely proper health & safety concern that permission to instal the charging point, may create a trip-hazard. The landlord was bound to take this concern very seriously, and rightly did so. But it is also clear, from the landlord’s internal communications provided to the Ombudsman, that having identified the concern, it presumed the issue to be insurmountable, without either carrying out its own investigation into ways of avoiding a trailing cable across the footpath, or considering options suggested by the resident.
12. It was reasonable for the landlord to note its local authority’s view, but it failed to take into account the ambiguity of that view, which is stated simultaneously to have supported the landlord’s position. There was no consideration of the mitigating measures that could be taken to overcome the trip hazard created by the loose cable, such as enclosing the cable in purpose-designed trip-hazard protection mats. The resident provided the landlord with photographic evidence of this solution in operation, and demonstrated that such mats are readily available.
13. This was one of three solutions suggested by the resident, the other two being sinking the cable in a channel cut below the footpath, or suspending it above the footpath. 
14. As the landlord’s decision to decline the charging point was purely on the basis that this would create a trip hazard; there should have been greater consideration for the available options for avoiding this, or at minimum, an explanation as to why the landlord would not consider the workarounds proposed by the resident. The landlord did not even explain its presumption that a charging point must be installed the other side of a footpath from the parking space, creating the trip hazard it then objected to. The Ombudsman notes that the landlord quoted the relevant Institute of Engineering and Technology (“IET”) code of practice, regarding placement of electric vehicle charging points, implying that this provided support or justification for its refusal. It indicated:

‘location… of charging equipment… cables in proximity to pedestrians… charging infrastructure should be positioned in order to avoid becoming an obstruction or trip hazard’.

15. This did not mean that installation could not take place, however, only that consideration needed to be given to any potential trip hazards.
16. The resident’s complaint was first made before the initial decision to refuse permission, and concerned only the delay and failure to communicate; but the landlord entirely ignored both those issues in its stage 1 response to the complaint, simply reiterating the decision that had been taken since the complaint was made.
17. In its stage 2 response, the landlord did apologise for the delay in reaching or communicating the initial decision, though it did not address the lack of communication in the meantime, including sending staff to photograph the resident’s home (allegedly) without having made prior arrangements with the resident.
18. The landlord’s internal communication between its stage 2 reviewer and the SECM who had made the initial decision, highlighted the fact that no explanation had been given for the initial refusal, saying that it ‘doesn’t really give a reason why it was declined’, and adding that ‘it just says it cannot be authorised which isn’t a very clear rationale for the decision’. This should have prompted the landlord to share its rationale, although it does not seem that it did.
19. The stage 2 reviewer went on to note that the resident had suggested solutions to the health & safety concern, and asked the SECM whether these had been considered. This too should have been an opportunity for the landlord to have recognised that it had not done so, and to have given this some thought. This was not done, however.
20. It therefore would have been difficult for the resident to understand the basis of the landlord’s stage 2 approach, which simply repeated the initial decision, and reiterated without any further explanation that permission was refused because ‘We… were unable to identify a way of allowing the installation that did not cause a health and safety concern’.
21. In view of the wider purpose of the resident’s request – that is, to provide her with an adaptation to support her mobility disadvantages – such requests should not in any case be refused lightly and without proper consideration. The landlord was aware of the resident’s disability, yet it does not appear that it took a proactive approach to explore how else it could support her.  
22. The landlord’s later internal communications confirm that it has no formal Aids & Adaptation policy, although it has been working towards one for over two years. Having this in place may have resulted in the avoidance of significant delay and distress, by emphasising its role in supporting residents through adaptations (where possible) which make their disabilities more manageable.
23. There is perhaps some inconsistency between the resident’s assertion that she committed to a vehicle contract on the presumption that permission would be granted, and her statement that she lost the opportunity of a cheaper and electric-vehicle-tailored electricity tariff because she could not presume permission.  The former became academic, since the car could not in fact be supplied until 26 April 2022, and she was (albeit less conveniently) able to charge it elsewhere until her own charge point was installed 16 days later. Nevertheless, the landlord has now, to its credit, acknowledged to the resident, “evident impact on your wellbeing”, and has repeatedly apologised for both delay and poor communication.
24. In reversing its decision to refuse permission for the charging point to be installed, the landlord has resolved the health & safety risk by installing a charging post at the parking place beyond the footpath, avoiding any need for a cable to cross it at all. This is a solution clearly more convenient to the resident, than any she had suggested. Furthermore, the landlord itself carried out those works at its own expense. Motability’s contractor had by then said it could not; and had it been able to, it would have been funded by a grant which, the resident stated, would not have covered all the works needed to effect her own suggested solutions, leaving her to pay the balance.
25. The landlord’s ultimate resolution thus represents a tangible financial benefit to the resident as well as achieving the outcome she initially wanted, where the contractor she had intended and expected to provide it, concluded it could not. In this way, while the landlord could have handled this matter better, and accommodated the resident’s needs significantly earlier, its later action was sufficient in satisfactorily resolving the complaint.

Determination (decision)

26. In accordance with paragraph 53(b) of the Scheme, the landlord offered redress to the complainant prior to the investigation which, in the Ombudsman’s opinion, resolves the complaint satisfactorily. 

Recommendations

27. If the landlord has not already done so, it should review its process for identifying and considering requests for reasonable adjustments under the Equality Act 2010, and prioritise the completion of an Aids and Adaptations policy to facilitate this.