The Guinness Partnership Limited (202210209)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202210209

The Guinness Partnership Limited

31 March 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

1. The complaint is about:
   1. the landlord’s handling of a skirting repair and associated offer of compensation;
   2. the resident’s concerns that the skirting repair had been outstanding for five years;
   3. the resident’s view that the landlord discriminated against him; and
   4. the landlord’s handing of the complaint.

Jurisdiction

2. 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.
3. After carefully considering all of the evidence, complaints 1b and 1c fall outside of the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction. As part of his complaint to this Service, the resident said that it had taken five years for hallway skirting board repair to be done, and that there had been lots of failed visits from the landlord. He also thinks the landlord has discriminated against him because of this. While the resident’s concerns are acknowledged, these were not issues which were raised as a part of the resident’s formal complaint to the landlord.
4. Paragraph 42(a) of the Scheme states that the Ombudsman will not investigate complaints which “are made prior to having exhausted a member’s complaints procedure, unless there is evidence of a complaint handling failure and the Ombudsman is satisfied that the member has not taken action within a reasonable timescale.”
5. As such, this report will only consider the complaint made to the landlord, which was about its handling of the skirting repairs in June and July 2022. The resident may wish to raise his remaining concerns as a new complaint with the landlord. If the resident remains unhappy with the response he receives, he can refer the matter back to this Service as a new complaint.

Background

6. The resident is an assured tenant of the landlord, and lives in a two-bedroom flat.
7. On 22 June 2022, the landlord’s operative visited the resident’s property to carry out a repair to the skirting. On arrival, the resident expressed concern about the job specification, and said that there was a gap between the skirting and the laminate flooring that needed repair. The operative left the property without completing the repair, and sought clarification from the repairs team. The resident raised a complaint about the issue on the same day.
8. The repair was rearranged for 29 June 2022. However, the operative was off sick that day, and so the appointment did not go ahead. The repairs team contacted the resident on 2 July; however, he advised that he would call in to book an appointment for a time that was convenient.
9. The landlord issued its stage one response to the complaint on 6 July. It said the repair had since been rearranged for 20 July 2022, and that it was sorry for the inconvenience that the resident had experienced. It also offered £25 compensation for the delay in completing the repair. The resident escalated his complaint to the next stage of the complaint process of 8 July. The resident did not provide any explanation for why he was unhappy with the stage one response. The skirting repair was subsequently completed on 30 July.
10. The landlord issued its stage two response on 25 August 2022. It accepted that it had let down the resident, and it apologised again for what had happened. It increased the compensation offer to £85, and said this was made up of £50 for the delay in completing the repair, £25 for poor communication and £10 for its delay in responding to his complaint.
11. The resident brought his complaint to this Service, and said he did not think the £85 compensation was adequate.

Assessment and findings

Skirting board repair

12. The landlord’s repair policy says that it aims to have routine repairs fixed within 28 calendar days.
13. The repair was raised on 9 June 2022, and the landlord’s operative did attend within 28 days to carry out the repair. However, the resident had other outstanding repairs required within his property, and there was some disagreement over which repair the operative was there to do.
14. The operative expressed concern that the resident was rude to him, and given the disagreement about the job specification, he made the decision to leave. However, the resident says the operative told him if he did not like the job, he should “get someone else to do it”.
15. From the evidence that is available, it is not possible for the Ombudsman to establish what exactly happened. However, it is clear there was some miscommunication between the two parties. The landlord then rearranged the repair for 29 June 2022. Unfortunately, the operative who was due to carry out the repair was off sick that day, and so did not attend at all.
16. Whilst the operative’s sickness was outside the landlord’s control, it is appreciated that this would have been frustrating for the resident, particularly as he says he took a day off work so the repair could be done.
17. The repair was then rebooked for 20 July 2022. It is noted that the stage two response refers to the repair being completed on 30 July. The evidence suggests that this was a typographical error, and in fact the repair was completed on 20 July. As such, the repair was completed within 41 days – 13 days outside of the landlord’s policy timescales.
18. The landlord appropriately apologised for the delay and offered £50 for the inconvenience that had been caused, as well as £25 for its poor communication. This was reasonable and proportionate in the circumstances, and the compensation offered was in line with the landlord’s compensation policy which says that up to £250 can be paid where an issue is resolved within a reasonable time which resulted in minor inconvenience. 
19. In identifying whether there has been maladministration the Ombudsman considers both the events that initially prompted the complaint and the landlord’s response to those events though the operation of its complaint procedure. The extent to which a landlord has recognised and addressed any shortcomings and the appropriateness of any steps taken to offer redress are therefore as relevant as the original mistake or service failure. The Ombudsman will not make a finding of maladministration where the landlord has fully acknowledged any failings and taken reasonable steps to offer redress. As the landlord has done so here, no further action is required.

Complaint handling

20. The landlord’s complaints policy explains it operates a two-stage complaint process. A stage one response will be provided within 10 working days from the receipt of the complaint. If the resident is not satisfied with this and escalates the complaint to the next stage, the stage two response will be provided within 20 working days from the request to escalate. It says if there is a good reason, it may take longer than this, but this will be explained to the resident and will not exceed a further 10 working days.
21. There was a delay with the landlord issuing its stage two complaint response, as this was sent 34 days after the resident requested his complaint be escalated to the next stage. It is not known what caused the delay, and it would have been reasonable for the landlord to provide some explanation within its stage two response. In addition, the evidence does not show that the landlord informed the resident that there would a delay. This was a departure from its complaints policy.
22. The landlord appropriately offered the resident some redress for the inconvenience that he was caused as a result of the delay in responding to his complaint. However, this was not proportionate in the circumstances. The stage two response was issued 14 days outside of the landlord’s timescales. While this was not a significant delay, the landlord had failed to inform the resident of the delay. This was the cause of further inconvenience, and this was not reflected in the offer that was made by the landlord. 

Determination

23. In accordance with Paragraph 53(b) of the Scheme, the landlord has offered reasonable redress for its handling of the skirting repair.
24. In accordance with Paragraph 42(a) the following complaints fall outside this Service’s jurisdiction:
    1. the resident’s concerns that the skirting repair had been outstanding for five years; and
    2. the resident’s view that the landlord discriminated against him.
25. In accordance with Paragraph 52, there was service failure by the landlord in respect of its handling of the complaint.

Orders

26. Within four weeks of the date of this decision, the landlord should:
    1. Pay the resident the £85 compensation offered (if it has not already done so), as the finding of reasonable redress has been made on that basis.
    2. Pay the resident £50 compensation for the delay in responding to the resident’s complaint.