Hyde Housing Association Limited (202007775)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202007775

Hyde Housing Association Limited

15 September 2021

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:

Decision to restrict the resident’s communication to a single point of contact (SPOC).
Response to the resident’s complaint.

Background and summary of events

The resident is an assured tenant of the landlord. The resident is an officer of a tenant residents’ association and has raised with the landlord both previously and currently complaints of his own and on behalf of other tenants.
In the latter half of 2019 [date unknown] the landlord’s director of customer experience wrote to the resident and assured him, in response to his concern that he was being considered ‘vexatious’, that the director had been clear in his interactions with the resident that he did not consider the resident’s multiple contacts qualified as ‘unreasonable behaviour’ under its complaints procedure.
Introduction of SPOC: On 15 June 2020 the landlord’s corporate complaints manager wrote to the resident to tell him that the high volume of communication it had received from him in relation to his own cases, not those in which he was representative, had become unmanageable as it was placing unnecessary strain on staff and preventing it from fully resolving his concerns. In summary it explained:
1. Under its complaints procedure making approaches to several members of staff at the same time about the same issue could constitute unreasonable behaviour.
2. Since January 2018 his contact on his cases (not those of others) had comprised: 259 emails, 16 letters and 159 phone calls.
3. With immediate effect it would limit his contact to email only for a limited time for which it provided him with a named SPOC within its complaints team. No other staff member would respond to contact through other channels.
4. The SPOC would manage the resident’s own cases and those he represented, would consult internally to resolve the complaints, and communicate with him by email but if the officer needed to speak direct would arrange a telephone call.
5. It would email him weekly with an update on all issues raised – cases and complaints – and telephone him monthly with a review of any open cases. This would be limited to an hour’s conversation during which no new cases could be raised.
6. It would review the arrangement in four months’ time (by the end of October 2020).
7. The arrangement was not intended to disadvantage him, but to enable it to manage a situation that undermined its ability to provide a responsive service to its customers.
The resident has told the Ombudsman that following the contact restriction he offered to find someone else to act as representative for the other tenants but received no response from the landlord to this offer. The Ombudsman has seen no evidence from either party to support or discount this account. The landlord has told the Ombudsman that during the monthly telephone calls following the imposition of the SPOC the resident did not dispute the SPOC process but did question the SPOC’s ‘productivity to progress matters’.
Formal complaint: On 14 October 2020 the resident emailed the landlord a Stage 1 complaint in response to the imposition of the SPOC. [The landlord operates a two stage complaints process through which, at the time, it undertook to respond at each stage within 20 working days.] In summary the resident said:
1. His volume of communication was because he was a tenant representative, that it was reasonable that he be allowed more contact for this, and the contact was necessary because the landlord had failed to respond effectively to those complaints in line with its complaints policy.
2. He questioned why the SPOC had been imposed after two years, after the landlord had ‘dismissed this allegation’; and said he felt victimised.
3. That after 17 weeks of the SPOC arrangement the landlord had failed to resolve the complaints, only provided lists of outstanding complaints/issues, despite his not raising further complaints for over five weeks.
4. Staff absences had caused delays and its four month SPOC requirement had delayed resolution of the complaints of the other tenants he was representing, for which he wanted compensation on their behalf.
5. He was concerned that the landlord’s provision of a monthly review to include all cases was a data protection breach.
6. He requested a review of the SPOC process and removal of the restriction.
Complaint response: On 11 November 2020 the landlord responded to the resident. In summary, the landlord explained:
1. Introduction of the SPOC accorded with its complaints procedure guidance which identifies unreasonable behaviour as including making approaches to several members of staff at the same time about the same issue.
2. It appreciated his contact was to resolve queries but the level of contact was placing unnecessary strain on staff and not helping it resolve his concerns.
3. It reiterated the instances of contact between January 2018 – June 2020 and said the restriction was imposed following consultation with its director of customer experience, head of customer contact and this Service.
4. Its review of the restriction was delayed from October 2020 due to staff availability but was carried out on 6 November 2020. This review had identified it could have resolved sooner some of the issues it had noted as unresolved or needing clarification, for which it apologised.
5. As a result it had now provided the SPOC with more support to enable the majority of issues he had raised to be concluded and going forward senior management would retain oversight of all SPOC cases to ensure necessary support was provided.
6. Adopting a SPOC approach had been to enable collation and monitoring of outstanding issues to conclusion through one point, in order to provide clarity and direction and the reduction of excessive contact and duplication of effort.
7. This was working and senior management oversight would prevent further delays. It confirmed each case had been responded to or was being so in accordance with its informal or formal resolution process.
8. The approach would continue as contact escalations were still at an unreasonable level. Its next telephone review with him would be on 4 December 2020.
9. This was its final response under its complaints process.
The landlord has told the Ombudsman that the decision to retain the SPOC at that point was because of the resident’s excessive contact within the SPOC process, expecting replies to emails outside of its undertaking to provide weekly updates and expecting call backs to telephone calls that were not part of the process. On 7 January 2021 the resident emailed the landlord to say the SPOC should have ended in October 2020 and all restrictions should be removed. He asked the landlord to raise a Stage 1 complaint about it.
On 1 February 2021, following a telephone review with the resident, the landlord’s corporate complaints manager wrote to the resident to confirm the end of the SPOC requirement. He explained it would monitor the resident’s contact going forward with the expectation that it not increase beyond a ‘responsible’ level and would factor in the additional contact required in his role as representative for other residents. He thanked the resident for his co-operation during the period of the SPOC approach.
Notwithstanding the removal of the SPOC, the resident has told the Ombudsman that the landlord still insisted that communication be in writing which he considered unfair and unreasonable.

Assessment and findings

Before considering the crux of this complaint, namely the imposition of the SPOC, the Ombudsman acknowledges that the resident has also complained that this contact restriction has exacerbated the delay he was already experiencing in securing action and responses from the landlord in both his own complaints and those for which he was acting as a representative for other tenants. The landlord’s response to other issues and complaints, which may or may not have been impacted by the imposition of the SPOC, however, has and will be considered by this Service where appropriate in the course of its assessment of those other complaints.
In so far as this investigation is concerned, as the resident made a separate and specific complaint about the landlord’s use of a SPOC in its communication with him, it is that issue which has been the focus of this investigation and the Ombudsman’s consideration. Consequently, the Ombudsman has not considered here whether the SPOC approach impacted any specific complaint in which the resident was making representations. If any of those complaints are the subject of a referral to this Service, the evidence of any impact will be considered by the Ombudsman alongside all other relevant factors.
The role of the Ombudsman in this complaint is to review the landlord’s actions with regard to the imposition of the SPOC and determine whether they were in accordance with its relevant policy and procedure and whether they were fair and reasonable in all the circumstances of the case.
The relevant policy and procedure here is the landlord’s complaints policy and complaints procedure guidance. The complaints policy sets out the steps open to the landlord if it believes a customer is making unreasonable demands or being unreasonably persistent. Examples it gives of unreasonable demands include: amending an original complaint by continually raising further concerns; not accepting appropriate explanations; focusing on minor details which do not affect the outcome; and making excessive contact on a single complaint. As an example of unreasonable persistence it describes a customer persisting in disagreeing with an action or decision on a case; contacting it persistently; or of continued verbal complaints.
The procedure states that if the landlord believes a customer is acting unreasonably it will clearly set out its view, the response it intends to take and will always offer the customer the opportunity to set out their view of the circumstances. The procedure recognises that customers may make what it considers to be unreasonable demands through the amount of information they seek or provide, the nature and scale of the service they expect, or the number of approaches they make.
It is important to note that it is not for the Ombudsman to substitute for the landlord’s judgement its own view as to whether the resident’s communication was unreasonable, provided that on the basis of the evidence provided the landlord’s judgement was not a manifestly unreasonable one.
The Ombudsman has been provided with data from the landlord showing instances of contact from the resident on specific dates through the 18 months preceding the imposition of the SPOC. While it is not possible for the Ombudsman to determine from the record what this contact concerned, it nevertheless shows a considerable level of contact over a protracted period. And volume of contact aside, the evidence indicates examples of communication from the resident that could also reasonably be said to fall within the landlord’s definition of what it considers to be unreasonable and persistent.
The Ombudsman notes the resident does not appear to dispute the level or content of his contact, but he is of the view that this was necessary as a result of what he claimed was the landlord’s failure to appropriately progress and resolve his complaints and queries on both his own and others’ behalf.
In the Ombudsman’s opinion, it should not be unexpected for a resident to take a different view from a landlord of the imposition of a contact restriction and the Ombudsman would expect a landlord’s complaints procedure to make provision for this in order to assure both itself and the resident that it was proceeding fairly. On this point, the Ombudsman notes the landlord’s complaints procedure instructs staff to consult senior managers prior to determining behaviour to be unreasonable and in this case the decision itself was made by the landlord’s corporate complaints manager, and therefore by a sufficiently senior officer.
The complaints procedure then details the next step in the process whereby a senior manager will decide on appropriate action, which could include informing the resident to direct future correspondence through a particular staff member. This was essentially what happened in the resident’s case through the imposition of the SPOC, and again was done by the manager in appropriate consultation with senior management.
However, as the landlord’s complaints policy makes clear, once it believes behaviour to be unreasonable it will set out its view and the response it intends to make, offering the resident the opportunity to set out their view of the circumstances. The resident clearly had his own view of the circumstances, not least being the fact that he represented a number of other residents which would naturally have increased the level of his contact.
In the Ombudsman’s view the landlord ought at that stage to have warned the resident that it considered his behaviour unreasonable and why. In doing so, this would have given the resident the opportunity to explain why he disagreed with its decision, provide any evidence he had that his contact – divided between the number of cases in which he was involved – was not unreasonable, and be able himself to propose a way forward (such as his offer to find alternative representation for other tenants). Even if that had not changed the landlord’s mind, it ought still have then warned the resident that a continuation of the specified unreasonable behaviour would lead to it taking a certain course of action. That would have made it clear to the resident what he needed to cease doing in order to avoid the imposition of the contact restriction and give him sufficient time to demonstrate he was no longer behaving in such a way as to make it necessary.
That was not what happened. In this case, the Ombudsman has seen no evidence of a warning having been given or the resident having been given an opportunity to make representations prior to the imposition of the SPOC. In the absence of its complaints policy allowing for an appeal or review process by which the resident could formally dispute the measure prior to its imposition, the Ombudsman considers it was even more important that it warn the resident and give him time to modify his behaviour in advance of its imposition. Particularly in light of the assurance the resident had previously been given in 2019 that his level of communication was not unreasonable and that he had been prepared to hand the role of representative to someone else if necessary. In light of that background the Ombudsman can understand why the resident considered the landlord’s action precipitate.
The Ombudsman notes the landlord’s reference, in its complaint response on 11 November 2020 to having consulted this Service prior to the imposition of the SPOC. This was not a case of the Ombudsman telling the landlord that it was right to impose the SPOC as and when it did as that is not the role of this Service. As the Ombudsman understands it, the nature of the landlord’s contact with this Service was simply with respect to general advice on contact restriction and the need to maintain an avenue of communication.
Moving on to the nature of the contact restriction itself, the Ombudsman does not consider the landlord’s requirements to have been unreasonable or inappropriate. Its complaints procedure explicitly allowed for use of a SPOC and restricting contact to email only was in accordance with that procedure. Importantly, the arrangement also provided for monthly telephone updates with the resident and weekly email updates on all the cases in which the resident was involved. In the Ombudsman’s opinion the restriction was not an onerous one for the resident and nor was it unfair. It was clearly aimed at avoiding duplication of effort of its staff, and ensuring notes of action and communication on cases was correctly ascribed to those cases, thereby ensuring clarity for all parties as to the state of play on each individual case as matters progressed.
The landlord’s procedure also appropriately specifies the need for review of arrangements after a set period of time. In the Ombudsman’s opinion, a review is important as it ensures a contact restriction does not remain in place indefinitely without good reason, which would clearly unfairly penalise a resident. The Ombudsman notes that although its procedure specifies a review after six months, the landlord undertook to do so after four months. This was fair and indicates to the Ombudsman that the landlord was not seeking to retain a restriction unnecessarily.
However, having imposed a contact restriction whereby communication was routed via one individual, the Ombudsman would expect the landlord to resource and support the individual concerned to ensure the contact restriction did not detrimentally impact progress on the resident’s cases and complaints. The landlord acknowledges it failed to do so in this case and that its failure delayed conclusion of some outstanding issues. As explained earlier, the cases which this impacted and the nature of the impact on either the resident (if he was the complainant) or the tenant (if he was the representative) does not form the subject matter of this investigation but would be for consideration in those individual cases. While necessarily making a distinction between the impact on those complaints and the resident’s complaint here, the Ombudsman does recognise that in this specific complaint the lack of a sufficiently resourced SPOC was of a clear cause of frustration and concern for the resident, as evident in his communication.
The fact that the landlord identified this failure in the course of its review highlights the importance of the review. As a result of which the landlord committed additional support to the SPOC and arranged for senior management oversight of the SPOC approach. Both measures, in the Ombudsman’s view, were an appropriate response by the landlord to prevent a recurrence, but one which clearly came late in the day for the resident.
In addition on the issue of the review, although there was a marginal delay by the landlord in conducting the review the Ombudsman does not consider that to have been of any marked detriment to the resident as the outcome of the review was for the continuation of the restriction for a while longer.
This brings the Ombudsman to a consideration of the landlord’s response to the resident’s complaint about the SPOC. It was in this complaint response that the landlord reported the outcome of its review. As the Ombudsman sees it, in its complaint response the landlord was acknowledging that the insufficiently resourced SPOC had delayed conclusion of some outstanding issues. And it would also have been aware from the resident’s complaint and communication the extent of his exasperation with this. Furthermore, the Ombudsman considers that this fact, together with the lack of adequate senior management oversight of the process, will have undermined the resident’s confidence in the process which had been imposed on him.
The Ombudsman would therefore have expected the landlord to have included in its complaint response its consideration of redress whereby it provided the resident with appropriate tangible recognition of its acknowledged service failure. As the Ombudsman sees it, the landlord’s failure to do so was made more unfortunate by its decision not to give the resident the option of escalating his complaint for review (as allowed for under its complaints procedure) but to directly signpost the resident instead to this Service should he remain dissatisfied. If the landlord had good reason not to afford the resident the opportunity to escalate his complaint, the Ombudsman would have expected it to have explained its reasons in its complaint response.
Notwithstanding its failure to consider redress as part of the complaints process, the Ombudsman welcomes the fact that the landlord took the opportunity to learn from the resident’s complaint to ensure that going forward its SPOC approach was improved for both the resident and other complainants with the deployment of sufficient resources and senior management oversight of the process.
Also, on the issue of the process itself, the Ombudsman notes the resident’s concern that the landlord’s amalgamation of all case updates in one document could potentially constitute a data protection breach. While noting these updates were provided as part of the SPOC approach which has now been lifted in his case and were in regard to other residents’ complaints whom the resident was representing, it is not for the Ombudsman but the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) to determine data protection breaches. Accordingly, any complaint the resident might have in relation to that would be for the ICO and not this Service to determine.
Finally, although the SPOC restriction has now been lifted, the Ombudsman notes the resident remains unhappy that one requirement of the earlier contact restriction – namely the requirement that he communicate in writing – still remains in place. The Ombudsman has seen no evidence on this point but considers any ongoing requirement would be for the landlord to determine and explain to the resident.

Determination (decision)

In accordance with paragraph 54 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme there was maladministration in the landlord’s decision to restrict the resident’s communication to a single point of contact (SPOC).
In accordance with paragraph 54 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme there was service failure in the landlord’s response to the complaint.

Reasons

The landlord was entitled to impose a SPOC and there is no evidence its decision to do so was unreasonable or unjustified. However, in imposing the SPOC restriction without first giving the resident either the opportunity to modify his behaviour or allow him to set out his views of the circumstances, the landlord failed to act in accordance with its procedure and in a way that was fair and reasonable in all the circumstances of the case.
Although the landlord took positive steps to learn from the complaint it failed to consider redress for the impact on the resident of its service failure and did not provide him with an opportunity to escalate his complaint for review.

Orders

Within four weeks of the date of this determination the landlord is ordered to:
1. Pay the resident £250 for its failure to either warn the resident of the imposition of contact restriction or enable him to make representations prior to its doing so.
2. Pay the resident £100 for its failure to consider redress in its complaint response and provide the resident with the opportunity to escalate his complaint for review.
3. Provide the Ombudsman with a timetable for a review of its complaints policy and procedure in order to make explicit the need for it to give a complainant sufficient warning of the imposition of a contact restriction so as to enable a complainant time to modify their behaviour and avoid the restriction. This should include the need to provide a complainant with a written explanation of the problem behaviour, the restriction being considered and the timescale being allowed for the resident to show they have appropriately modified their behaviour. The landlord is then asked to provide the Ombudsman with evidence that it has revised its procedure or, if it has reason to consider this to be unnecessary, with a written explanation for this.

Recommendations

If not already done so, it is recommended that the landlord write to the resident to explain why it still requires him to communicate only in writing.