Lambeth Council (202102917)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202102917

Lambeth Council

26 July 2023

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

The complaint is about the landlord’s:
1. Record keeping.
2. Handling of responsive repairs to the resident’s bathroom.
3. Complaint handling.

Background and summary of events

The resident wrote to the landlord on 3 February 2021 and made a formal complaint. He said that:
1. He had previously made online complaints, on 1 October 2020 and 16 October 2020, which the landlord had not acknowledged.
2. He wanted the landlord to complete outstanding repair work to his bathroom, including correcting the fitting of the toilet and bath, tiling, replacing the sink tap, fixing the bathroom window, and plastering the damaged ceiling below the bathroom.
3. He wished for the landlord to agree, and confirm in writing, completion dates for all works before work commenced.
4. He expected the landlord to compensate him for the “suffering” he and his family had experienced over the previous 2 years due to the repair issues, damage to his flooring, time taken off of work and failing to deal with his complaint in a timely manner.
The resident states that a further complaint was submitted to the landlord by email and ‘registered post’ on 24 March 2021. This Service has not been provided with a copy of this complaint.
On 25 June 2021, after being contacted by the resident, this Service wrote to the landlord asking it to log and respond to the resident’s complaint by 9 July 2021.
The landlord emailed the resident on 2 July 2021 to acknowledge receipt of his complaint. It said it aimed to provide its response by 30 July 2021 and would keep him informed of any delays.
On 4 August 2021, the resident contacted this Service to say that he had still not received the landlord’s response to his complaint. This Service wrote to the landlord the same day, asking it to issue its response no later than 11 August 2021.
On the same day, the landlord sent its stage 1 complaint response to the resident. The landlord apologised for the delay in responding to the resident’s complaint. It said that orders for repairs to the resident’s bathroom had been raised to its previous repairs contractor who had recorded ‘no access’ in their attempts to complete the work. The landlord said it had re-issued the order to its new repairs contractor and asked for it to treat this as a priority. It told the resident its contractor would contact him directly to arrange an appointment.
The landlord also advised the resident that claims for damage to personal belongings should be made using his own contents insurance, but that he could investigate a claim through the landlord’s own insurers if he wished.
On 5 August 2021, the resident requested to escalate his complaint as he felt “the substance of my complaint has not been addressed properly and in its entirety”. He made particular reference to his desired outcomes to be provided with a date for works to be completed and awarded compensation, neither of which had been achieved.
The landlord subsequently provided a stage 2 complaint response on 15 September 2021. It:
1. Acknowledged that the resident had not received a prompt response to his complaint and apologised for the stress and inconvenience this had caused.
2. Provided details of repair orders raised in September 2020 and dates on which its former repairs contractor had attempted to visit but was unable to access the property.
3. Stated that its new repairs contractor had attempted to access the property on 9 September 2020 (this is assumed to be a typing error for 2021) to complete a works order raised on 4 August 2021 but had also been unable to gain access.
4. Advised it had asked its repairs contractor to prioritise the outstanding work and contact the resident directly to arrange an appointment.
5. Said that it recognised that the resident felt he had not received a professional service and apologised for the stress and inconvenience this had caused him.

Events since stage 2 complaint response

On 11 April 2022, when providing information for this investigation, the landlord advised this Service that it would be conducting a full inspection of the resident’s bathroom that same day to “gain a better understanding” of the outstanding repairs.
When asked by this Service for an update on the outcome of the inspection, prior to commencing this investigation, the landlord advised that it could not locate any record of the inspection, but that an order for bathroom works was raised on 12 April 2022 and completed on 1 August 2022.
The resident has since moved out of the property.

Assessment and findings

Record keeping

When providing information requested by this Service for this investigation, the landlord said that all initial repair requests were dealt with by an outsourced contact centre. It said that it did not hold records of the conversations between the contact centre and residents.
The information provided by the landlord to this Service for the resident’s case extended only to its 2 formal complaint responses and emails from the resident about the complaints process.
It is of concern that the landlord appears to have no oversight of communications between its residents and its contact centre. This would not only limit its ability to audit and quality check the service being provided, but also prevent it from providing detailed and complete responses to residents’ queries – as is evidenced by the brief and vague complaint responses it provided in this case.
The Ombudsman’s spotlight report on knowledge and information management (May 2023) stated that “Consistently, we find that poor knowledge and information management is a key contributing factor to why the landlord fails to provide an adequate service, particularly in the repairs service and in complaints handling”. In this case, there are significant gaps in the landlord’s records that have inevitably impacted its ability to resolve the substantive repairs issue, conduct a thorough complaint investigation and provide evidence to this Service.

Repairs to the bathroom

The landlord’s records, as outlined in its complaint responses, indicate that the first works order for the resident’s bathroom was raised on 4 September 2020, with a further order raised on 29 September 2020. When referring his complaint to this Service, in December 2021, the resident stated that the issue had been ongoing for 2 years. Due to the aforementioned issues with the landlord’s record keeping around initial contact with residents, it cannot be confident that the repair issues were not reported prior to September 2020.
The landlord’s records indicate that its repairs contractor attended the property on 3 occasions in October 2020 and once in January 2021 and recorded ‘no access’ each time. The landlord has not provided any evidence that the resident was informed of any of these appointments. In correspondence to this Service, it did advise that whilst investigating the resident’s case, it had identified issues with its contractor scheduling appointments without confirming them in advance with the resident.
This failure led to the resident’s repair orders being inappropriately closed under the landlord’s no access policy, despite the resident not even being made aware of the access being required. This not only caused unreasonable delays in the works completed but also unnecessary waste of the contractor’s own time and resources.
When requesting that the landlord log and respond to the resident’s stage 1 complaint response, this Service clarified that his requested outcome included completion dates for repairs to be provided and confirmed with him via email before any work commenced. As part of its stage 1 complaint response, the landlord raised a new works order with its new repairs contractor on 4 August 2021 and advised that the contractor would contact the resident directly in order to arrange an appointment.
Considering the resident’s request, the fact that the outstanding works were subject to a formal complaints process, and the multiple previous incidents of no access, it would have been appropriate for the landlord to have arranged an appointment date with its contractor and provided this as part of the complaint response.
Instead, the landlord’s stage 2 complaint response recorded that the repairs contractor attended the property on 9 September 2021 and again recorded an incident of no access. As with previous instances, the landlord has provided no evidence that the appointment was confirmed with the resident.
In its stage 2 complaint response, the landlord once again advised the resident that its repairs contractor would contact him to arrange to complete the outstanding work – it failed to take proactive steps to ensure the appointment was arranged and resident appropriately informed. This was despite the resident clearly stating, in his request to escalate his complaint, that he remained dissatisfied at not being provided with a date for completion of works at stage 1.
Once again, this approach failed to provide the desired outcome. The resident advised this Service during a phone call on 28 March 2022 that no works had been carried out and he had not even been contacted by the landlord’s contractor to make an appointment.
The landlord was later able to confirm that the works were completed on 1 August 2022 – almost 2 years after the initial work order of 4 September 2020 was completed. This was an extremely unreasonable delay for which the landlord has not been able to provide any mitigation. It led to the resident and his family living with disrepair for an extended period which they described as impacting their ability to use the bathroom sink, toilet and hallway lighting.

Complaint handling

The resident said that he submitted complaints to the landlord using its online form on 1 October 2020 and 16 October 2020, and provided reference numbers for each of these. Having received no response to these, he said he sent further complaints to the landlord by email on 3 February 2021, and by email and post on 24 March 2021. The landlord provided no account of why these complaints were not responded to and they were not acknowledged in either of its complaint responses – despite them being explicitly referred to in the resident’s request to escalate his complaint.
The landlord’s failure to respond to his complaints led the resident to approach this Service, which contacted the landlord on his behalf. Following this, the landlord eventually acknowledged the resident’s complaint on 2 July 2021. This represented a period of 9 months where the resident was denied access to the landlord’s complaints process and his concerns went unaddressed.
The landlord’s stage 1 complaint response partially upheld the resident’s complaint, acknowledging delays in the repairs being carried. Although it stated that it expected the recent change of repairs contractor to improve standards and services for residents, it did not detail how it expected to make such improvements, or any learning from issues with the former contractor that would support this. Nor did the landlord make a reasonable offer of redress – despite compensation being stated as a desired outcome in the resident’s original complaint.
The Ombudsman’s complaint handling code specifies that, whilst a complaint response must be provided as soon as the answer to a complaint is known, “outstanding actions must still be tracked and actioned expeditiously with regular updates provided to the resident”. In this case, the landlord failed to show such diligence, relying on its repairs contractor to progress the works order, and placing the onus on the resident to call its contact centre “for interim updates on the progress of works if needed”. This failing was repeated in its stage 2 complaint response.
In its stage 2 complaint response, the landlord again failed to address the resident’s request for compensation, despite referring to it when setting out its understanding of his complaint. The resident advised this Service that he was not contacted by the landlord throughout its complaint investigation to clarify any doubts about the nature of his complaint or outcomes sought.
The landlord stated that it “takes complaints very seriously and uses them as tool for organisational learning and to help us to improve our services”. However, its stage 2 complaint response displayed no evidence of this and offered no reassurance that the issues with its repairs appointments and complaint handling would not be repeated.
The Ombudsman identifies 3 principles which drive effective dispute resolution – be fair, put things right, and learn from outcomes. Due to the failings in its complaint handling, the landlord failed to achieve any of these, or indeed anything other outcomes, as a result of its complaints process.

Determination (decision)

In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme there was maladministration by the landlord in its:
1. Record keeping.
2. Handling of responsive repairs to the resident’s bathroom.
3. Complaint handling.

Reasons

The landlord’s records in relation to its repairs service failed to allow it to conduct an appropriate investigation into the resident’s complaints and establish a clear and complete version of events.
The landlord’s repairs contractor recorded multiple instances of ‘no access’ to the resident’s property, however the landlord established that at least some of these appointments were never confirmed with the resident. Despite this, the landlord did not take steps to ensure it confirmed an appointment with the resident as part of its complaint responses, despite this being a desired outcome of his complaint.
The resident made 4 attempts to log a formal complaint with the landlord, using a variety of channels, before being forced to approach this Service for assistance. The landlord failed to acknowledge this, and offer any explanation or apology. The landlord’s complaint responses failed to either make an offer of redress, or explain why it felt one was not appropriate, despite the resident being clear that this was one of his desired outcomes of the complaint.

Orders

Within 4 weeks of the date of this report, the landlord is ordered to:
1. Pay the resident £1200 compensation composed of:
  1. £600 for the distress and inconvenience caused to him by its maladministration in handling the responsive repairs.
  2. £600 for the time and trouble caused to him by its maladministration in handling his complaint.
2. Apologise to the resident in writing for the maladministration identified in this report.
Within 8 weeks of the date of this report, the landlord is ordered to:
1. Review the processes around record keeping and data access in its outsourced contact centre and create an action plan to ensure that the landlord’s staff have appropriate access to records of all service requests made by residents.
2. Carry out a self assessment against the recommendations made in the Ombudsman’s spotlight report on knowledge and information management – giving particular regard to recommendations 11, 13, 19, 20 and 21 which are highly pertinent to its failings in this case.
3. Review its processes around the receipt of complaints to ensure that these are appropriately logged and recorded when sent through any of its available communication channels.
The landlord should provide evidence of compliance with these orders to this Service.