Hammersmith and Fulham Council (202205510)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202205510

Hammersmith and Fulham Council

10 May 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:
1. The landlord’s response to the resident’s concerns about communal cleaning.
2. The landlord’s response to the resident’s reports about anti-social behaviour from a neighbour.
3. The landlord’s response to the resident’s request for a new Housing Officer.
4. The Ombudsman has also considered the landlord’s complaint handling.

Background

The resident is a secure tenant of the landlord at the property, a one-bedroom second floor flat. She has lived at the property since 30 August 1999. The resident is registered disabled and has a number of ongoing health conditions.
The first concerns by the resident regarding the communal cleaning of the stairs and potential anti-social behaviour were raised in August 2020. The landlord engaged with both the resident and the neighbour in early 2021 and this led to an improvement in the cleanliness of the stairs and a reduction in the resident’s concerns about noise from the neighbour’s property. The initial case was closed in August 2021.
In October 2021, the resident reported that the stairs were once again not being cleaned by her neighbour and made further reports of anti-social behaviour in December 2021.
The resident submitted a stage 1 complaint on 16 December 2021 in which she requested a change of Housing Officer as her current officer was “rude” and “bullies” her. She asked for an independent inspection of the communal stairs by Health and Safety professionals as she said her neighbour did not clean them. She complained that the state of the stairs impacted on her health. The landlord responded to the complaint on 14 January 2022; it did not uphold the complaint. While the landlord expressed regret that the resident had felt unsupported and was experiencing difficulties with her neighbour, it found that the Housing Officer had acted professionally and in line with procedure. The landlord confirmed that the stairs would continue to be monitored but there would be no change of Housing Officer.
The resident escalated her complaint to stage 2 on 9 February 2022 as she was not satisfied by the response. She stated that the situation was impacting on her health and was frustrated by what she perceived as the landlord’s failure to address the anti-social behaviour. She considered that no effective action had been taken as her neighbour had refused to engage with mediation and was not cleaning the stairs as agreed. She asked for the neighbour to be rehoused or that his behaviour be managed effectively. She once more requested a change of Housing Officer. The landlord provided its final response on 20 April 2022, and once again did not uphold the resident’s complaint. It was satisfied, after investigation, that the Housing Officer had acted as expected in the situation. It agreed that the Housing Team would conduct another inspection of the stairs, but considered an assessment by the Health and Safety Team to be unnecessary.
The resident complained to the Ombudsman on 17 June 2022.

Assessment and findings

Cleaning of communal stairs

It is accepted by all parties (although not documented in the Occupancy Agreement) that the responsibility for cleaning the stairs lies with all residents in the block of flats. There is no evidence that this is contested by the neighbour and this is the basis upon which the Housing Officer worked to achieve an agreement between the resident and the neighbour.
The resident lives on the second floor of the block. Due to her difficulties with mobility a hand rail was installed in the communal stairwell by the landlord at some point prior to the timeframe of this complaint. The rail is intended to assist her in ascending the stairs. Reference is made during the course of the case to the fact that the stair rail was broken. This was however resolved, after some delay due to the condition of the wall to which it was attached, in March 2021. Therefore, this investigation will not consider the landlord’s actions in relation to this aspect of the case, given that it was satisfactorily resolved.
The first documented concern from the resident about the cleanliness of the communal stairs was raised on 20 August 2020. There was no documented response from the landlord at this point and the resident repeated her concerns on 12 October 2020. She stated that the stairs were not being cleaned and that her neighbour had smeared food on the stair rail. She reported that when he did clean the stairs, he simply swept them with a brush and failed to clean the stairs. Once again there was no record of a documented response from the landlord.
The resident made a further report about the cleanliness of the stairs on 1 December 2020 although this did not make mention of the neighbour. Instead, there had been some building work carried out in the block of flats and the resident complained that there was a lot of residual dust that had not been cleaned. Again, there was no record of a documented response from the landlord.
The Ombudsman considers that the landlord’s record keeping in relation to its response to these earlier concerns about the condition of the stairs was not adequate. While the circumstances were challenging, after the easing of the first national lockdown, the landlord retained records of its response to the resident’s concerns. Without such records, the landlord is unable to demonstrate that it responded appropriately to these concerns. It is clear however that the resident was dissatisfied with the service offered by the landlord at this time and, while she did not submit a formal complaint, the landlord should have logged it as such and dealt with it accordingly. This was particularly important given the fact that the resident was vulnerable and needed safe access to the banister in the stairwell to access her second-floor flat.
The resident reported further concerns on 30 December 2020. The first recorded response from the Housing Officer was on 5 January 2021, in which she stated that she had a number of pressing issues to which she needed to attend and she would be unable to resolve the issues in relation to the stairwell within two weeks (which was the timescale requested by the resident). However, she did arrange a meeting between herself and the neighbour which took place in mid-January. At this meeting the neighbour agreed that he would clean the stairs every two to three weeks.
The resident reported that the stairs had not been cleaned on 5 February 2021, 15 February 2021, 18 February 2021 and 26 February 2021. However, upon inspecting the stairs later in the day on 26 February, the resident acknowledged that the stairs had in fact been cleaned, although she considered them still be dusty.
In response to the concerns raised on 26 February 2021, the Housing Officer agreed to arrange mediation between the resident and the neighbour. This was predominantly to address the concerns about anti-social behaviour (which are detailed below) but was also a mechanism for dealing with the concerns about communal cleaning. The Housing Officer arranged to meet with her manager to discuss solutions that might improve the situation.
The Housing Officer was provided with photographs taken by the neighbour that confirmed to the Housing Officer’s satisfaction that the stairs had been cleaned on 19 March 2023, although this was contested by the resident.
A further report of dust on the stairs was made by the resident on 26 April 2021 following more contractor works in the area. The case was closed by the Housing Officer in August 2021 as there had been no further reports of the stairs not being cleaned.
Notwithstanding the fact that the records in relation to the cleaning of the stairs were not adequate during 2020, the actions taken by the Housing Officer on behalf of the landlord from 2021 onwards were, in the Ombudsman’s view, appropriate and reasonable. The Housing Officer went in person to meet with the neighbour to broker an agreement regarding the cleaning of the stairs and this seems to have been upheld by the neighbour as the stairs were cleaned in both February and March (although this is contested by the resident on the second occasion). There were no further concerns raised by the resident in the run up to the case closing in August 2021 and it is the Ombudsman’s view that the landlord acted reasonably to address the issue at this point.
However, the issue re-emerged 6 months later. The resident reported on 7 October and 26 October 2021 that the stairs were not clean and asked that the neighbour be contacted. The Housing Officer reminded the resident that the responsibility for cleaning the stairs was a joint one but the resident responded that she had cleaned the stairs on many occasions with no support so would not be doing so this time. The resident also sought the support at this time of the Council’s Environment Department. A member of staff from the Environment Department wrote an email of support for the resident to the Housing Officer but it is unclear whether this member of staff had actually attended the property or was simply following up on concerns raised by the resident.
Following these reports regarding the communal cleaning, the Housing Officer went to meet again with the neighbour at the property. She was satisfied with photographs provided by the neighbour that confirmed the stairs had been cleaned. The resident continued to contest that the stairs had been cleaned to an acceptable standard.
The Ombudsman considers that the actions taken by the Housing Officer in October 2021 demonstrated that she managed the communal cleaning issue appropriately. Upon receiving further reports from the resident, she swiftly arranged to visit the property and resolved the situation. Essentially there appeared to be a difference of opinion regarding what constituted an acceptable standard of cleanliness for the stairs; the efforts that the neighbour made to brush down the stairs are deemed inadequate by the resident.
The Ombudsman is unable to assess the standard of cleaning but it can assess the landlord’s response to the concerns being raised. In this case, because the Housing Officer acted swiftly and proactively in addressing the concerns raised throughout 2021 by attending the property, meeting with the neighbour, brokering agreement and monitoring the stair cleaning through photographs, the Ombudsman considers that the landlord acted appropriately. There were some initial failures in relation to the documentation of the concerns and the delay in addressing the issue during 2020 but these are not sufficiently serious as to amount to service failure on the part of the landlord in relation to this aspect of the complaint.

Anti-social behaviour

The landlord has an Anti-Social Behaviour, Racial Harassment and Hate Crime Policy which sets out the procedures and timelines for addressing complaints about anti-social behaviour.
The complaints made by the resident were assessed as Grade 3: “behaviour or acts that are considered breaches of the conditions of the tenancy agreement for Housing. This includes anti-social behaviour where there is no intention to harm or annoy any particular neighbour, family or individual, which occurs through a thoughtless or a ‘don’t care attitude’ and spontaneous verbal abuse for any person or resident within the borough”. While the resident considers that some of the behaviour was intentional, the Ombudsman agrees with the landlord that the description of much of the behaviour fits the Grade 3 descriptor; noise, music and door slamming form the majority of the concerns. Grade 3 ASB reports are handled by the Housing Officer.
The anti-social behaviour documented is one-on-one and the policy sets out that: “A significant proportion of complaints in any of the above Grades are “one-on-one complaints” where there are allegations and counter-allegations and it is almost impossible to decide who, if anyone, is the complainant or perpetrator. In these cases, Housing and the Anti-Social Behaviour Unit (ASBU) will give advice, will encourage the parties to resolve the issues themselves or will refer the case to mediation and then close the case. If mediation is refused, we will take no further action. This will be made very clear to the parties. Residents will be advised that they may take their own independent advice from agencies such as the Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB) or Law Centre.”
The policy sets out a number of stages that need to be completed when a report of anti-social behaviour is made. These include an initial report to capture details from the complainant, checking of previous history of complaints, an initial interview with the complainant, an agreed action plan with a consent form, an investigation, a risk assessment and a referral to mediation if appropriate. Cases can be closed if 3 months have elapsed since the latest reported incident or if mediation is refused in a one-on-one case.
According to the resident, there was an initial disagreement between her and the neighbour in July 2020. She alleged that her neighbour sought to obtain the password for her broadband so that he could use it from his own property. The resident said that the neighbour was upset when she refused to give him the password and that this led to the subsequent anti-social behaviour.
The initial reports of anti-social behaviour included allegations of noise late at night. The resident highlighted door slamming as a particular problem, alongside music playing during the night and visitors to the property being loud. She also complained about the fact that the neighbour had not labelled his bell at the entrance door correctly, meaning that delivery drivers rang her bell instead.
It is not clear what action the landlord took during these earlier stages. Many of the resident’s concerns were raised alongside her dissatisfaction with the standard of stair cleaning (which has been explored above). As with the previous element of the complaint, the Ombudsman considers that the landlord’s record keeping in relation to its response to these earlier concerns was not adequate. The landlord needed to document its response to the concerns being raised by the resident as it is not possible to assess whether any actions it took were adequate or otherwise. It is clear that the resident was dissatisfied with the support offered at this point and that there was some evidence of low level anti-social behaviour. While she did not submit a formal complaint, the landlord should have logged it as such and dealt with it accordingly.
There was a more serious altercation between the resident and her neighbour in January 2021. The resident had asked the Housing Officer to intervene with the neighbour to address her concerns about the cleaning of the communal stairs and the neighbour attempted to speak directly to the resident about the matter. The Housing Officer intervened with the neighbour and asked him not to approach the resident to discuss the issue directly, but rather to work through them. There is no evidence that would suggest the neighbour did not follow this instruction.
In an email dated 9 February 2021, the resident asked for an immediate call back from the Housing Officer. She explained that she was very scared as the neighbour had banged heavily on the walls during the night and she described it as if someone was “demolishing the house”. The resident said that she believed cracks had been made in the walls as a result.
The Housing Officer did not respond via email until 15 February 2021 and told the resident to contact the police if she was scared at any point. This was not in line with the procedures in the policy which outline that reports of ASB should be addressed within 5 working days. Further the Housing Officer should have held an initial interview with the resident and entered all the information into the ASB database. No evidence of this has been given by the landlord and all the documentation provided is in the form of emails. It is the Ombudsman’s view that more thorough records of this escalation of ASB should have been kept with full details of the ASB alleged alongside a process that was communicated to the resident.
Notwithstanding the failure to follow the procedures set out at this earlier stage. The Housing Officer did respond more fully on 26 February 2021, expressed sympathy for the resident and acknowledged all the points of the resident’s complaint. It is clear that undocumented interviews had been undertaken because they stated that the neighbour has made a number of counter allegations about the resident’s behaviour. They also asked the resident if she wished to proceed with mediation so it is clear that this had been discussed at this point. The Housing Officer stated further than they would be meeting with their manager in the afternoon to discuss all the concerns fully. They also asked for permission to gather more evidence from other witnesses and offered a floating support referral to assist the resident. They explained that the response had been compromised by the ongoing restrictions in relation to the Covid-19 pandemic.
It is the Ombudsman’s view that the Housing Officer’s response at this point was in line with the policy. They had appropriately escalated the concerns and sought wider senior support from her line managers, offering mediation in line with the policy on one-on-one ASB allegations. There is no indication that there were any wider concerns being raised by any other residents. The resident had also clearly been advised to use diary sheets, in line with the policy, as these were referenced as the case progressed.
The resident’s view of mediation shifted during the case. On 28 February 2021 she stated that she would not engage as it was a “waste of time”. However, she changed her mind and ultimately it was her neighbour’s refusal to participate that meant mediation did not go ahead.
The police attended the resident’s property in March 2021. There is no detail in the documents that explains why they were called out and if this was in relation to the incident in February. The police response acknowledged the complexity of the case, indicated their support for mediation and further highlighted wider support that was available to the resident.
By early April 2021, it is the Ombudsman’s view that progress had clearly been made. The resident and the neighbour were waiting for mediation to start (even though this ultimately did not go ahead). The resident reported that the door slamming and music were better. She still reported that one friend who visited was loud but confirmed that, overall, the situation had improved. The Housing Officer closed the case, in line with the policy, as there had been no further complaints. The Ombudsman considered that this action was fair and reasonable, given the absence of any further reports of ASB.
The resident reported a further concern regarding ASB in November and December 2021. She said that here neighbour was violent and she could not sleep. She repeated earlier concerns about screaming, banging of doors and singing until the early hours. It is not clear what direct action the landlord took at this point. The resident pursued the complaint via the complaints policy at this stage.
While the actions taken by the landlord were broadly in line with policy and appropriate to address the reports of ASB, there are, in the Ombudsman’s view, some failures to document all the actions taken. However, the actions taken by the Housing Officer to improve the situation for the resident were reasonable and appropriate. The resident is of the view that “nothing” was done to address the ASB but the Ombudsman does not agree with this conclusion, given the evidence of actions taken as detailed above, which demonstrated the landlord acting in accordance with its ASB policy and showed an improvement in the issues reported over time. The resident is advised to continue working with the landlord to address any ongoing issues.

The landlord’s response to the request to a change of Housing Officer

The resident clearly considers that the Housing Officer had not worked effectively to address her concerns about cleaning of the communal stairwell or anti-social behaviour. However, the Ombudsman, as explained above, is of the view that the actions that the Housing Officer took were broadly in line with procedure and policy. It agrees with the conclusions of the stage 1 and 2 complaint assessors who found that the Housing Officer maintained a balanced and constructive approach and attempted to broker agreement between the resident and her neighbour. The fact that the case was closed in August 2021 following improvements in both elements of complaint demonstrates that the actions taken addressed the issues raised.
The Ombudsman is of the view that there is no reason for the landlord to agree to a change of Housing Officer beyond the fact that the request has been made and that the resident feels this would be beneficial.

Complaint handling

The landlord’s Corporate Complaints Policy for Adults’ Service, Children’s Service and Formal Corporate Complaints states that complaints about housing are considered under the Council’s corporate complaints policy. A Stage 1 complaint should be assessed, with a written decision being issued within 15 working days.
The policy further states that a Stage 2 complaint will be assessed and a final written decision will be issued within 20 working days of the request to escalate.
The initial complaint was submitted on 16 December 2021 and was acknowledged the following day. However, the landlord did not issue a Stage 1 response not upholding the complaint until 14 January 2022, which was 19 working days later. This was outside the timeframe specified in policy.
The Stage 2 complaint was submitted on 9 February 2022 and no acknowledgement was received by the resident. The response not upholding the complaint was not issued until 20 April 2022, which was 50 working days after the initial complaint and well outside the 20-day expected timeframe. The resident, with the support of the Citizen’s Advice Bureau, had to chase on a number of occasions.
While the Ombudsman agreed with the substantive findings of the assessors of the stage 1 and 2 complaints, the failure to communicate effectively with the resident about the extended timeframes and agree an expected decision date meant that she was required to seek support from other agencies and take time to pursue the complaint with the landlord.
Furthermore, as has previously been highlighted in the findings on the communal cleaning and ASB complaints, there was also a period between August 2020 and December 2020 during which the resident made numerous reports of dissatisfaction. The records from the landlord are incomplete and are simply a record of the resident’s communications via email so it is not clear what actions were taken by the landlord. Further, the concerns were never recorded as a complaint and this led to frustration on the part of the resident, who was left with the impression that the situation had not been managed effectively.
Based on the information available, the initial complaint should have been recorded in 2020 and handled in line with the complaints policy at that point. This may have meant that the underlying issues were addressed earlier and reduced the distress and inconvenience to the resident in pursuing the concerns. This was particularly relevant as the resident suffered from a number of physical and mental health issues which were impacted by the delays in dealing with the problems at outset.
In all the circumstances of the case, a determination of Service Failure has been made in relation to the landlord’s handling of the resident’s complaint. It failed to identify the need to raise a formal complaint back in 2020 and when it did raise the complaint, it delayed at both stages of the complaints process. To remedy these failures, compensation of £100 has been ordered.

Determination

In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman scheme, there was no maladministration in the landlord’s response to complaints about communal cleaning.
In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman scheme, there was no maladministration in the landlord’s response to complaints about anti-social behaviour
In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman scheme, there was no maladministration in the landlord’s response to a request for a new Housing Officer
In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman scheme, there was service failure in the landlord’s complaint handling.

Orders and recommendations

Orders

The landlord to pay £100 in recognition of the service failures identified in relation to its complaint handling.
The landlord to ensure that the Ombudsman is provided with evidence of this payment within four weeks of this report.

Recommendations

The landlord to review its policies and procedures in relation to the identification and logging of complaints at an early stage, upon receipt of initial expressions of dissatisfaction.
The landlord to review its record keeping in relation to concerns raised by residents, particularly in relation to the logging of actions taken in ASB cases.