Islington Council (202112762)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202112762

Islington Council

9 August 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:
   1. The landlord’s handling of repairs to the resident’s boiler; and
   2. The landlord’s handling of the resident’s complaint.

Background

2. The resident is a secure tenant of the landlord. She lives in a one-bedroom property.
3. The resident raised a repair order to the landlord on 21 October 2020 as she could not use her boiler for hot water or heating. The landlord’s contractor found a problem with the boiler’s programmer. Although the resident only had access to intermittent heating and hot water over the winter months, the landlord’s contractor did not carry out the repair until 26 January 2021.
4. The resident complained to the landlord about the time taken to complete the repair. The landlord apologised for the delay, and offered total compensation of £300 for this. It also offered £75 compensation for a delay in responding to the resident’s complaint. The resident has brought her complaint to this Service because she does not think the compensation offered is sufficient.

Assessment and findings

Repair to boiler

5. The landlord is responsible for the repair and maintenance of any installations relating to heating and hot water within the property.  
6. The landlord’s repairs policy explains that repairs that affect a resident’s day-to-day living, such as no heating or hot water, are classified as urgent repairs which have a response time of 24 hours. The landlord’s contractor attended within this timeframe; however, they were not able to complete the repair as a new circuit board was needed. The contractor failed to raise a new repair order, which caused much of the delay.
7. The resident did raise a further repair order on 29 December 2020 (because she had not heard from the landlord). The contractor attended on 31 December 2020, which was outside the 24-hour emergency response timeframe. The contractor could not gain access to the property, and so reattended in early January 2021. When they did so, they found the gas meter had run out. The contractor failed to listen to the resident when she explained the problem was with the power panel. This was a further opportunity to put things right, which was missed.
8. It is not clear how often the resident had access to heating and hot water over the three-month period. There is reference to her having intermittent heating, and also a ‘back-up system’ for washing. Also, when the contractor attended the property in January 2021, they topped up the gas meter and found the heating to be working at that time. Though there are also references to the resident being without heating and hot water.
9. The landlord accepts there was an unacceptable delay before the repair was completed. When failures are identified, we would expect a landlord to address the failures in line with the Ombudsman’s Dispute Resolution Principles (be fair, put things right, and learn from outcomes) and in line with its policies and procedures.
10. To put matters right, the landlord completed the repair on 26 January 2021. It also apologised for the delays and recognised the resident had been caused inconvenience by having intermittent access to heating and hot water for three months. It offered the resident £150 for the delay, plus £75 for inconvenience and £75 for the resident’s time and effort in pursuing the matter.
11. The landlord’s offer in respect of the delay is higher than the compensation for delays as set out in its complaints policy, as this refers to £25 for each month of delay. The higher amount was appropriate, and also in line with this Service’s remedies guidance.
12. However, given that the resident had to raise a further repair order, and that the landlord had not upheld its 24-hour emergency response timeframe on receiving the resident’s report on 29 December 2020, in the Ombudsman’s opinion, a greater award should have been made. There also should have been greater recognition of the fact that the heating issue took place during the winter months.

Complaint handling

13. The landlord’s complaints policy indicates that it operates a two-stage complaint handling process. It explains that at stage one, a complaint response will be issued as well as a stage one review where the matter complained about remains unresolved. Where the resident remains dissatisfied, the policy indicates that matters will be considered at stage two (also known as the ‘Chief Executive stage’), and a full response provided within 28 calendar days.
14. The Ombudsman appreciates that in this case, the landlord followed this process. In the Ombudsman’s opinion, however, while the landlord’s procedure purports to be a two stage process, the introduction of a stage one review response ultimately makes this three stages. This is contrary to the Housing Ombudsman Service’s Complaint Handling Code (the Code) which emphasizes that “a landlord’s complaints procedure shall comprise of two stages”.
15. While the Code does make some provision for a three stage process where a request has been made and the reasons have been set out in the landlord’s self-assessment against the Code, the landlord has not done this. The landlord therefore should not have employed a three stage process.
16. By introducing a stage one review, rather than escalating the resident’s complaint to stage two, the landlord delayed the resident in obtaining its final position and in being able to bring her matter to the Ombudsman Service. This was inappropriate and was subsequently contrary to this Service’s expectation.
17. Moreover, it is also noted that despite requesting that her complaint be escalated to stage two on 17 April 2021, the landlord did not provide its Chief Executive’s response until 17 August 2021, which was significantly outside the 28-calendar day timeframe. This Service can see that the landlord did keep the resident informed that there was a delay, and subsequently made an offer of £75 compensation by way of apology for the delay. In the Ombudsman’s view, however, with consideration of all circumstances of the case, this award failed to reflect the landlord’s handling of matters and was not in line with this Service’s remedies guidance.

Determination

18. In accordance with Paragraph 54 of the Scheme, there was service failure in respect of the landlord’s handling of repairs to the resident’s boiler.
19. In accordance with Paragraph 54 of the Scheme, there was service failure in respect of the landlord’s handling of the resident’s complaint.

Order

20. The landlord should pay the resident additional compensation of £100 for the delays in completing the repair (in addition to the £300 already offered).
21. The landlord should pay the resident additional compensation of £25 for the delays in responding to her complaint (in addition to the £75 already offered).
22. The landlord should make the above payments (£500) and provide this Service with evidence of this, within four weeks of receiving this determination.

Recommendations

23. While the landlord recognised its failure here, it should ensure that in future cases, it follows up on repairs where there has been a loss of heating and/or hot water. In particular, the landlord should make every effort to ensure that its emergency repairs are responded to within 24 hours, as its policy suggests.
24. The landlord should revisit its complaints policy to ensure that it comprises of two stages only, and subsequently two complaint responses, in line with the Code. The landlord should remove its stage one review and instead undertake a full and proper review in its consideration of matters at stage two.