Home Group Limited (202126796)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202126796

Home Group 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 resident’s complaint is about:

1. The landlords handling of the resident’s dissatisfaction with the standard of communal cleaning.
2. The landlords handling of the resident’s dissatisfaction with the grounds maintenance contract.
3. The landlord’s handling of the resident’s complaint and level of redress offered.
4. The level of increase in service charges.

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.

The level of increase in the service charges

3. This service cannot investigate complaints that concern the level of rent or service charge, or the amount of the rent or service charge increase. This is because the Ombudsman has no discretion to consider such complaints, these matters are generally for the First Tier Tribunal – Property Chamber (FTT). The FTT can determine the reasonableness of the service charges and any increase, it can also make a binding decision about the liability to pay a charge. The resident may wish to seek further advice on this issue from the Leasehold Advisory Service.
4. After carefully considering all the evidence, in accordance with paragraph 42e of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, the resident’s complaint, about the level of service charge increase, falls outside of the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction

Background and summary of events

Policy Framework

5. The landlord has a Neighbourhood and Estate Management Policy. Within its scope, good neighbourhood and management practices includes a consistent approach to managing grounds maintenance and cleaning contracts.
6. The policy also commits the landlord to regularly undertake area inspections and proactively address issues raised; customers, grounds maintenance contractors and cleaning contractors should be invited to attend where possible.
7. The landlord has a two stage Complaints, Compliments and Comments Policy. It states that:
   2. It systematically records and thoroughly and impartially investigates all complaints.
   3. It will respond to a stage one complaint within ten working days. If longer is needed it will not be longer than a further ten working days. If the actions are agreed, the complaint will be kept open with an assigned complaint owner until resolution.
   4. Stage two, if the resident is unhappy with the plan to put things right, they can escalate their complaint to the final stage of the internal complaints process for further review; within eight weeks of the stage one outcome.
   5. There may be occasions to make a good will gesture or to award compensation. Discretionary compensation payments are not automatic, even when it is clear mistakes have been made.
8. The landlord has a Discretionary Compensation Policy. Its purpose is to identify and where appropriate, award residents with a monetary sum for a failure or loss of service.
9. The landlord has a “rectification process” which applies when a contractor has failed to attend or perform to the requirements of the contract. If the work is not completed on time to the required specification, an email is sent to the contractor and the landlords regional representative. If on inspection the matter has not been resolved, a rectification notice will be issued.

Summary of events

10. The resident is the leaseholder of a first floor one bedroom flat that he purchased through the shared-ownership scheme on 3 March 2015.
11. For context, the resident has been complaining about the failed carpark lighting and poor service from the cleaning contractor since 2019. There were reports in January 2020 about these matters and the landlord responded by using an emergency cleaning contractor and by repairing the lights. On 21 July 2021, the landlord sent a stage one response to the resident’s formal complaint; which advised the car park lighting was fixed, it also acknowledged service failings and delays in repairing the carpark lighting and offered £160.00 compensation which the resident accepted.
12. On 22 October 2021, the resident sent an escalation request in relation to his stage one complaints of January 2020 and 15 July 2021, as the same issues were still outstanding. In summary he said
    1. The car park lights were briefly fixed in July 2021 but were only working for 2 weeks and then failed again.
    2. Since August 2020, the cleaning contractor had not attended site for at least 18 weeks, which in a year equates to non-attendance at site for almost 5 months in total. This had deteriorated as they had not had cleaning services at the estate, since 17 September 2021, which was over 5 weeks and the corridors and stairs at the estate were filthy
    3. He spoke with the landlord in July 2021 who told him the cleaning contractor could not gain access to clean, as they had no keys. The landlord assured him that new keys had been sourced, but when the cleaning contractor did not attend  in September 2021, the landlord gave this reason again.
    4. The grounds maintenance services have been well below the expected standards. The specification sheet shared with residents, stated the contractor should attend the grounds every fortnight (between March – October) to perform tasks such as grass cutting, litter picking, weed removal and other such tasks, which had not happened.
    5. The  grounds maintenance contractor did not attend in 2021 for the entire months of June, July, September or October. As a result the grounds looked appalling; in the summer the grass was longer than knee height, residents could not access paths because of overgrown hedges and shrubs.
    6. Any repair required to the communal areas at the property is a long and frustrating affair; repair requests from residents go ignored by the landlord or take months of chasing up from residents e.g. carpark lighting.
13. On 28 October 2021 a call back was noted on the landlord’s system, in which the cleaning company’s non-attendance was discussed with the resident. The landlord confirmed the cleaning contractor would be attending the next day and that they now had keys to the block.
14. Between December 2021 and January 2022, there were three emails from the resident, about poor performance or failed attendance by the cleaning contractor. There was also a further report of the car park lighting not working.
15.  In January 2022, the landlord attended a site visit with the resident. On 24 January 2022, the landlord acknowledged the resident’s concerns and said it would serve notice on the cleaning contractor for non-attendance and the grounds maintenance contractor for poor performance.
16. Between February 2022 and May 2022, there is evidence of six email reports and calls from the resident, advising the landlord of poor performance or failed attendance by the cleaning contractor.
17.  On 7 March 2022, the resident contacted this service about his complaint because multiple complaints and escalations had been made with the landlord but no satisfactory response or resolution had materialised. On 25 April 2022, this service instructed the landlord to escalate the resident’s complaint of 22 October 2021 to stage two, and enclosed a copy of his escalation request.
18.  The landlord spoke to the customer on 23 May 2022,  to discuss his concerns about the complaints process and the cleaning and garden maintenance contracts. The resident wanted to escalate his complaint to stage two, but the landlord advised the stage one complaint was over eight weeks so out of time. The resident said he had made several complaints since and agreed to provide the complaint reference numbers. The landlord said that it would open a new complaint in the meantime.
19. The residents complaint was acknowledged as a stage one complaint on 26 May 2022, but the resident was also notified that the landlord had escalated his previous complaint to a stage two instead, on the advice of this service.
20. The landlord completed a review of the complaints, and sent its stage two response on 23 June 2022. In summary it said:
    6. It apologised firstly for the investigator’s own error in the complaint reporting process. It explained, usually a stage two complaint must be made within eight weeks of the resident receiving confirmation of the closure of the complaint. In this case the resident did not agree to close the stage one complaint and continued to raise complaints. The resident had provided complaint reference numbers, but they had been unable to identify them. The landlord had since been advised by the Housing Ombudsman that it must immediately escalate to a stage two which it had done.
    7. It provided a detailed account of the procurement process that the landlord goes through, to award the garden maintenance contract.
    8. It explained the previous contractor ‘A’ was unsuccessful in the tendering process and the current contractor ‘B’, won the bidding process. There were however concerns about their ability to complete the work for the price, but they provided evidence they could and were awarded the contract.
    9. Contractor B showed signs of contract failure, so the landlord took the decision to revoke the contract at short notice. As the procurement process can take nine months, the landlord split the contract and awarded an emergency contract for this area with the previous contractor ‘A’.
    10. For the first few months, contractor A, had to focus on getting estates back to a point where they could just do general maintenance and this had been a challenge.
    11. To prevent this happening again, measures had been put in place: Action proposed:
        1. The landlord will be using a wide variety of tools and systems available for monitoring, alongside action plans and contractual penalties to manage quality.
        2. The procurement process had started immediately to be in place 2023.
        3. Lessons learned, a working group and an action plan had been set up and they will work with the resident to get things right.
        1. It accepts that the changes had not been communicated appropriately.
        2. It will be informing the executive team of poor cleaning performance.
        3. Addressing standards of cleanliness in an action plan, progress to be discussed at weekly meetings.
        4. Pursuing a refund from the contractor to be returned to residents.
        5. Working with the contractor on their recovery plan.
        6. Monitoring progress jointly, residents and landlord.
    12. It apologised for and accepted repeated failings to log, acknowledge and act upon the resident’s complaints. This was despite the training and support staff receive on complaints and the importance of the complaint handling code. Moving forward the Head of Service would facilitate a staff briefing on the issue, to be led by the investigator.
    13. The investigator offered themself as a point of contact for the resident for any complaints in the future.
    14. A working group has been set up for the estate, to address all the issues and the residents will be kept updated.
    15. The cleaning contract was procured through the same method explained earlier, and the current contractor performed well. Although the performance in this block had been poor, it worked with the contractor in a number of different areas and overall, their performance is good. So exiting the contract for the landlord would be a last resort; they would prefer to manage performance.
    16. They did however acknowledge that there have been inconsistencies in the management of the performance. Rectification notices were not served consistently, meaning issues were not addressed appropriately. The investigator admitted shock, at the poor standard of cleanliness on a site visit.

Post Complaint Process

21. Repairs Information has been made available to this service that shows reports that the car-park lighting was not working as at, 31 December 2021, 23 March 22, 9 July 2022 and 13 October 2022.
22. The resident complained to the Ombudsman that the window replacement programme was cancelled. The Ombudsman cannot consider issues that the landlord has not had an opportunity to respond to first. As the resident did not raise this issue as part of his complaint or escalation request to the landlord, we cannot investigate this part of the complaint. If the resident is still unhappy with this issue, he may wish to raise a new complaint with the landlord.

Assessment and Findings

Cleaning Contract

2. There is evidence of a long history ofrecurring problems with the communal cleaning at the resident’s block, in the period predating this investigation.
3. Records from the landlord show an increase in contact from the resident between October 2021 and May 2022 to report non-attendance, or work not being completed by the cleaning contractor. When contractors fail to perform, the landlord’s procedure is to contact the contractor and regional representative, and if the matter is not resolved, serve the contractor with a formal rectification notice. By its own admission the landlordfailed to follow this procedure in response to a significant number of the contractor failings reported by the resident as it did not serve a rectification notice or contact the contractor to discuss its performance. This was not in accordance with its neighbourhoods and estate management policywhich commits the landlord to a proactive approach to contract monitoring.
4. The policy also commits to regular area inspections, to include residents and cleaning contractors where possible. There is no evidence that regular inspections took place between September 2021 and June 2022 or, that the relevant parties were approached to try and arrange them. Had these taken place the continued poor performance of the cleaning contractor may have been picked up sooner and addressed as the policy intended. This would have  prevented the ongoing poor standard of cleaning experienced and the need for the resident to keep having to complain to the landlord.
5. The landlord does not appear to have an escalation procedure for continued poor performance (if it has, it has not been provided to this service in our requests for information on this process). It was not appropriate that the landlord took the same action each time the contractor failed to provide the required service, when it was not resolving the problems or improving performance.
6. The resident asked for the cleaning contractor to be replaced. The landlord declined to exit the contract because the cleaning contractor was performing well on other estates; even though it acknowledged it had failed to manage the cleaning contractor’s performance. This was not fair on the residents that live on this estate as it was not reasonable for the landlord to expect them to continue to receive a substandard service on one estate, because others are receiving a good service elsewhere.
7. As a result of the stage two complaint, the landlord has acknowledged its failings and apologised. It has agreed to set up a working group for the estate, put better contract monitoring systems in place and introduce financial penalties for the contractor. This is a reasonable approach to resolving the issues by the landlord. Having financial penalties in-place for poor performance is an escalation following any rectification notices. Understandably, the resident lacks confidence in the approach, based on the landlord’s previous contract monitoring ability.
8. The landlord was fair in agreeing, as partial redress, to refund some of the service charges the contractor credited to the landlord for failure to provide services. In the landlord’s response of June 2022, how this was going to be administrated and calculated was still to be determined, and it is not clear if this offer has been fulfilled.
9.  The Ombudsman’s code says that any remedy offered must reflect the extent of any service failures and the level of detriment caused to the resident as a result. Factors to consider include length of time that a situation has been ongoing, frequency with which something has occurred, the number of different failures, and in any award the time and trouble a resident has been put to.
10. Although the landlord, has apologised for its failings, and devised an action plan for moving forward, it has acknowledged this “does not provide a comprehensive solution”. The landlord has agreed the performance and standard of cleanliness has been unacceptable, the problem has been re-occurring for a significant time without resolution and it is one of a number of issues the resident has had to complain about. When looking at reasonable redress, an apology and proposed action plan is only partially sufficient; this addresses the complaint moving forward, but does not deal with the impact the service failure has already had on the resident. It is therefore appropriate, for the landlord to offer financial redress for the stress, time and effort the resident has had to put in, writing, calling and meeting the landlords staff on site.

Grounds Maintenance Contract

11. The grounds maintenance contract was awarded to a new contractor, contractor B, the exact date when this happened is unclear. Prior to this, with contractor A, the grounds maintenance had been satisfactory; when contractor B took over, the service deteriorated. The resident complained about the service failure, but also questioned the landlord’s process for awarding its contracts.
12. The Ombudsman cannot comment on the landlord’s procurement and how it awards its contracts; however, public contracts of this size and for this type of work are time limited, and when the term of the contract comes to an end, under the Public Contract Regulations 2015, the landlord is obliged to retender the contract. It was therefore appropriate that when the grounds maintenance contract ended, the landlord entered into a formal procurement process, to secure a contractor.
13. It was appropriate for the landlord not to share details of the gardening maintenance tender as this is confidential and business sensitive information. The landlord was reasonable in its response to the resident, in fully explaining how the tendering process works, the stages it goes through and the weighting used in the process.
14.  Through the procurement process, contractor B, was awarded the contract, but when the signs of contract failure started to emerge, with the landlords early concerns on whether the contractor could perform for the price, the landlord reacted appropriately in making the decision to remove the contractor from the contract.
15. The landlord temporarily divided the contract between existing regional contractors and awarded an emergency contract to the estates previous contractor, contractor A. It was appropriate for the landlord to provide an interim solution for the grounds maintenance contract, in light of the fact the re-procurement process could take up to six to nine months to complete.
16. It was also reasonable for the landlord to accept and explain that contractor A, had a backlog of work left from contractor B, and this would take time to complete before  expected performance, for just routine ground maintenance could resume.
17. What was not appropriate, was the lack of communication to residents about the failed contract, the measures that had been put in place, the longer term solution and the impact this would have on them both service wise and financial.
18. The landlord appropriately accepted the failings of the grounds maintenance contract, and apologised for not communicating to residentsabout the impact it would have on them.
19. As a result of the stage two complaint, the landlord has proposed a reasonable course of action. It has agreed to set up a working group for the estate, put robust contract monitoring systems in place which will oversee the grounds maintenance contract and has already commenced the tendering process for the new contract. This failed contract was an unprecedented situation for the landlord, not a usual day to day performance issue like the cleaning contract, so the action proposed was appropriate in these circumstances.
20. However even though the landlords response was appropriate in dealing with the contract failing, it did cause a significant drop in service, with no grass cuts, borders and hedges overgrown. This impacted the resident as the estate became unsightly and unkempt and with no explanation why. In the circumstances it would have been appropriate for the landlord to consider financial redress for the inconvenience and again the time and effort the resident allocated to reporting the issues.

Complaints Handling

21. The landlord’s complaints policy states, that if actions from the stage one complaint are agreed, the complaint will be kept open with the assigned complaint owner until resolution. The resident complained on 24 March 2021, because a complaint about a repair he had raised the previous year had never been resolved, yet the complaint had been closed. This does not align with the landlord’s policy.
22. The complaint of 24 March 2021 was logged as a new stage one complaint. The landlords’ complaints policy, says this should be responded to in 10 working days, unless extra time is required, which would be a maximum of 10 working days. The landlords response was not completed until 15 July 2021, with no evidence that the landlord advised the resident extra time would be required, which is not reasonable or in line with its complaints policy. The landlord acknowledged its failings with the car park lighting repair and reasonably offered financial redress in line with its discretionary compensation policy, which was accepted by the resident at the time
23. On 22 October 2021, the resident sent an escalation request in relation to his stage one complaints of both January 2020 (which pre-dates the investigation) and 15 July 2021 as the same issues in both were still outstanding. The Ombudsman code states that a landlord must not unreasonably refuse to escalate a complaint through all stages of the complaints procedure and must have clear and valid reasons for taking that course of action. This was officially out of the landlords eight week escalation time-frame, so the landlord had the ability to refuse the escalation request, but in doing so, in line with the Ombudsman’s code, it should have advised the resident of the decision and the reasons why, which it failed to do.
24. Even if the escalation request had been appropriately refused by the landlord, the landlord’s policy defines a complaint as any expression of dissatisfaction. The residents correspondence on 22 October 2021, clearly sets out the resident’s dissatisfaction with a number of elements of the service, which were still outstanding, and the landlord should have logged it at the least, as new complaint. The only response seen, that coincides with the timing of this complaint, was a call log to the resident to discuss the cleaning on 28 October 2021. This was not an appropriate complaint response, and covered only one element of the complaint.
25. The resident continued to make regular complaints with the landlord on all the issues raise in his correspondence of October 2021, with no resolution. There is clear evidence that the resident consistently reported his dissatisfaction with various elements of the service. The landlord had issued the resident a number of complaint reference numbers, so he was confident he was in a position to escalate his complaint. The landlord was unable to identify the reference numbers he had been given, and they did not align to the complaint recording system. In any event, it was still unreasonable that the landlord did not record and address his concerns as a formal complaint.
26. This service advised the landlord on 25 April 2022 to escalate the residents complaint of the 22 October 2021 to stage two, of its complaints process. The landlord did so, however, it failed to fully investigate all the resident’s complaint as it did not consider the issue of the carpark lighting. The landlord advised this service that this was an historic complaint that had been resolved in July 2021. However, the records show, that the resident informed the landlord on 16 July 2021, that its repairs to the lighting had not lasted two weeks. This had still not been resolved at the time the resident requested escalation of the complaint in October 2021. The landlords repairs records also show the car park lighting was still being reported for resolution on December 2021, March 2022, July 2022 and October 2022.
27. It appears this oversight was because the landlord escalated a stage one complaint that was taken from May 2022, when the resident was trying again to escalate his complaint, and not the complaint this service advised it to escalate from October 2021.
28. From the evidence seen, the landlord’s staff are not always clear when a complaint needs to be recorded as a formal complaint and at what point it can be escalated. Also of note, is that, if a complaint issue from stage one, does not get resolved within eight weeks, as with the car-park lighting, the resident cannot then escalate this failing because they are out of time. This is inappropriately leading to repeat stage one complaints being recorded and a lack of escalation. The Ombudsman code states if all or part of the complaint is not resolved to the resident’s satisfaction at stage one, it must be progressed to stage two of the landlord’s procedure.
29. The investigation of the other issues at stage two of the landlord’s complaint process was thorough. Its response set out clearly the landlord’s perception of the outstanding issues. The review was well documented, the response appropriately acknowledged its service failings, and apologised to the resident. It provided a reasonable and accurate account of what it perceived had gone wrong and a plan of action to put things right moving forward.
30. Up until the landlord’s final response, the failings in the complaint handling process had been significant, and resulted in unnecessary delays in getting the problems addressed. Whilst the landlord apologised for this, and committed to further training going forward, the resident was not offered reasonable redress, for the frustration at not being able to get issues resolved over a long period of time,and inconvenience in the amount of time and effort spent, to get his concerns heard by the landlord. In these circumstance it would have been appropriate for the landlord, to have considered financial redress and revisited its discretionary compensation policy.
31. The Ombudsman encourages landlords to use complaints as a source of intelligence to identify issues and introduce positive changes in service delivery. It was therefore appropriate that the landlord compiled a lessons learned log; making it available to the residents, also goes some way, to repairing the landlord resident relationship, showing they have been listened to.

Determination (decision)

32. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was maladministration by the landlord in respect of its handling of the residents dissatisfaction with the standard of communal cleaning.
33. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was findings of service failure by the landlord in respect of its handling of the residents dissatisfaction with the grounds maintenance contract.
34. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was maladministration by the landlord in respect of its handling of the complaint and level of redress offered.

Reasons

35. In regard to the handling of the cleaning contract, there was clear evidence of consistent underperformance and non-attendance by the landlord’s contractor. The landlord failed to adhere to its processes to rectify the situation, and chose not to escalate action,despite the repeatedfailures in the service provided,
36. In regard to the handling of the grounds maintenance contract, the new contract set up for grounds maintenance failed, the Ombudsman accepts this was an unprecedented situation for the landlord. It acted appropriately in removing the contractor, it set up interim measures to keep the service going, it put additional measures in place to improve contract monitoring and initiated the new procurement process. However it could have communicated better with residents and service standards did suffer as a result; it has accepted this and apologised.
37. The landlord by its own admission has consistently failed to log and escalate the residents’ complaints, which has resulted in extensive delays to getting significant issues that the resident has raised, resolved. It has also failed to keep to timescales set out in its complaints handling policy and failed to fully respond to all aspects of the complaint.

Orders

38. The Ombudsman orders that the landlord should pay the resident £700.00 in total compensation, consisting of:
    2. £300.00 for the stress and inconvenience (time and effort) caused to the resident by the failings in the monitoring and management of the cleaning contract.
    3. £100.00 for the inconvenience (time and effort) and service deterioration experienced by the resident, due to the failed garden maintenance contract.
    4. £300.00 for the stress and inconvenience (time and effort) caused to the resident by the continued failings in recording and escalating complaints in the landlords complaint handling process.
39. Comply with the above order within four weeks.
40. Within eight weeks, the landlord should review its complaint handling procedure against the Ombudsman’s complaint handling code, paying particular attention to, ensuring the closing of stage one and process for escalation are clear and that staff are fully aware of the procedure.
41. Within 4 weeks provide an update on the action plan to improve contract monitoring on the estate, tackle  poor performance and introduce escalation measure such as contract failure penalties.
42. With in four weeks provide an update on the implementation of the landlord / resident working group, to jointly oversee and resolve any issues outstanding and any newly arising issues that affect the communal areas of the estate.
43. With in two weeks provide an update on the situation with car park lighting, including the nature of the fault, whether it remains outstanding and if it is,what the landlord intends to do to rectify the fault.
44. Within two weeks, provide an update to this service on whether the resident was refunded the service charge credit given to the landlord by the cleaning contractor, for services not provided.