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Kingston upon Thames Council (201915804)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 201915804

Kingston upon Thames Council

31 March 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

  1. The complaint is about:
    1. the landlord’s response to the resident’s report about the communal front door, this was raised in February/March 2020.
    2. the landlord’s delay in logging the complaint.
    3. the way the landlord handled the second complaint about the communal front door, which was raised in July 2020.

Jurisdiction

  1. 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.
  2. The landlord and resident exchanged correspondence about a second complaint about the communal doors (July – August 2020). The landlord’s stage one response and the escalation request has been seen by the Ombudsman but the stage two complaint response has not. After carefully considering all the evidence, in accordance with paragraph 39 (a) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, the second complaint about the communal front door, which was raised in July 2020, is outside of jurisdiction.  This is because the Ombudsman will not investigate complaints which, in the Ombudsman’s opinion are made prior to having exhausted a member’s complaints procedure (39.a).

Background and summary of events

Background

  1. The resident is a secure tenant of the landlord which is also the local authority. The property is a flat within a block which is served by a set of communal entrance doors.
  2. The complaint is about the landlord’s response to the resident’s reports of a problem with the communal door. The resident raised two separate complaints about this, one in March 2020 and one in July 2020. This investigation considers the landlord’s response to the March complaint.

Repair policy

  1. The repair policy sets out that repairs may be responsive, cyclical or planned. It also states the landlord will aim to carry out repairs in one visit where possible and in accordance with the repair service standards and arrange appointments to inspect and carry out works where necessary. It sets out the landlord’s repair obligations, which include external doors and door frames and other fittings such as those in communal areas and door entry equipment.
  2. Under the policy’s length of time for repairs, it states that there are target times for different types of orders and in most cases it keeps to the targets, but will be flexible (if there are particular needs). The categories are emergency orders (two hours), urgent orders (24 hours) and routine orders (20 working days).

Complaint policy

  1. The landlord operates a two stage complaint procedure with the first complaint response due within 15 working days and the stage two complaint also due within 15 working days, if the escalation is received within 28 days of the stage one complaint response. Extended timescales under stage two will be discussed with the resident if it will take longer.
  2. The policy is silent on who will carry out the stage one investigation, but states that this can be raised with a member of staff or manager responsible for the service. The stage two investigation is reviewed by the customer care service.

Summary of events

  1. The resident reported a repair to the communal front door (“door not closing”) to the landlord on 17 February 2020.
  2. On 18 February 2020 the landlord told the resident “the broken communal front door has been raised” and was “scheduled for Friday 21st February between 8-10am”, which was then completed.
  3. On 24 February 2020 the resident emailed the landlord to say the door had not been fixed followed by further communication on 25 February 2020 to say that the door was working.
  4. On 2 March 2020 the resident contacted the landlord stating that she wished to raise a stage one complaint about the communal security entry door, she said this had still not been fixed and did not close.
  5. On 8 and 11 March 2020 the resident highlighted the complaint again. The resident said that the door sometimes did not work; she said that the repair was raised on 17 February and had not been resolved. The repair was not raised again due to the pandemic repair restrictions.
  6. The resident escalated the complaint to the Ombudsman who then enquired with the landlord on 13 March 2020.
  7. The landlord said on 16 March 2020 that the matter was initially raised as a repair and the work was completed, it said that it appeared the door was not working again and the resident raised this a second time. It apologised for not picking this up at the time and explained that it missed this at the time due to the volume of information received from the resident. It explained it would raise the repair and contact the resident.   
  8. On 27 March 2020 the landlord wrote to the Ombudsman about its communication with the resident in February and March 2020. On 31 March 2020 the resident contacted the Ombudsman about the lack of contact from the landlord. The Ombudsman relayed that the landlord had said it was not booking non essential jobs, the resident’s case was classed as non essential and the resident was made aware of this. The resident did not dispute this but remained dissatisfied at the lack of response to the complaint. The Ombudsman told the resident it would ask the landlord to contact the resident by the end of April to discuss this directly.
  9. The landlord responded to the Ombudsman on 1 May 2020 and said that when the first complaint was raised, it was raised as a repair which was then completed. The landlord said that it apologised that the second repair was not picked up and it would contact the resident to apologise; it said that it did not feel the complaint process was necessary at the time as the landlord had met the service standards.
  10. On 6 May 2020 the Ombudsman contacted the landlord to encourage local resolution under its internal complaint process. The landlord confirmed on 7 May 2020 that it would progress the complaint under its internal complaint procedure.
  11. On 13 May 2020 the landlord wrote to the resident about the communal door, which was “not consistently closing and sometimes drags on the floor”. It explained that it logged a complaint about the door not consistently working correctly since the repair of 21 February 2020 and apologised to the resident for the delay in logging this. It gave a timescale of 2 June 2020 for the response.  It also explained that the job to investigate the door, following her reports that this was still problematic, would be on hold whilst the pandemic restrictions were in place. It stated that this had been discussed with the resident previously.
  12. The resident contacted the landlord on 15 May 2020 and asked it to also investigate its complaint handling, because she raised a stage one complaint on 2 March 2020 but this was acknowledged outside of 15 workings days, as per its internal complaint procedure timescales.
  13. The landlord then issued a stage one response on 1 June 2020, which said:
  1. It understood the complaint to be about the repair to the communal door to the resident’s property, which was intermittently getting caught on the ground and not fully closing since the repair job was completed on 21 February 2020.
  2. The landlord logged a complaint with the operative about the issue, who replied that the intermittent nature of the problem indicated that this was not due to the repair it completed but instead due to the change of the material due to weather and it invited the landlord to raise a new order if it wanted the operative to return.
  3. The landlord raised a new repair order for an inspection of the communal door to confirm the cause of the issue, it could not offer a date due to the pandemic restrictions and resulting limited availability of staff and other priority jobs.
  4. It agreed to update the resident once it learned the outcome of the inspection.
  1. The resident escalated the complaint on 2 June 2020. She initially disputed the operative’s finding about why the door was problematic (the operative said the door was getting stuck to the ground and not closing due to the wood swelling in the heat of summer but she reported the door entry getting suck in February). The resident confirmed that the door was closing fine so there was no outstanding repair, so declined the offer to have another repair/inspection. Her complaint was “about the fact that I had to contact you several times to get this door fixed, and each time you told me it had been fixed, it hadn’t been”.
  2. The landlord issued the stage two final response on 17 June 2020. It considered whether the stage one complaint was appropriate and held that it was, the landlord said it did not find any fault with the information it had provided at stage one. This was that the repair was raised as a routine job and responded to within timeframe.

Assessment and findings

  1. The landlord responded reasonably to the resident’s report of the repair to the communal door which was raised to it on 17 February 2020. This is because the landlord’s records show that the landlord raised a work order for the repair the following day, on 18 February 2020. The work order report shows a target completion date of 17 March 2020 which was 20 working days, as per the timescale under its repair policy for “routine orders”. The operative marked the job as complete on 21 February 2020, ahead of scheduled time and therefore within an appropriate timescale. It was reasonable for the landlord to rely on its operative’s feedback to consider the status of the work to be complete. Upon receiving a further report about the door from the resident on 24 February 2020, the landlord engaged with the resident before it was confirmed by the resident that the door was working again on 25 February 2020.
  2. Upon discovering that the resident raised a further report of a problem with the door in March, the landlord replied but said it could not address this yet due to the pandemic restrictions. The landlord said that it conveyed this to the resident, which was not disputed, but the resident remained dissatisfied. The national guidance in March 2020 to landlords and local authorities was that access to properties would only be proposed for serious and urgent issues, with a pragmatic approach encouraged and that the repair obligations remained in place. Therefore, the landlord’s decision to hold the inspection of the door at the time was appropriate.
  3. The landlord demonstrated that it addressed the initial repair in a timely manner and relied on the feedback of its operatives that the work was complete. When further reports were made, the landlord’s response was limited due to external factors, which it said it conveyed and which remained undisputed. Therefore, although the resident remained dissatisfied, there was no maladministration by the landlord’s response to the report of the door.
  4. There was a failure by the landlord to pick up on the resident’s complaint of March 2020. Though the landlord apologised for this in its communication to the resident in May prior to the formal response, it failed to investigate this under its complaint procedure as part of the formal complaint response despite the resident requesting this. The failure to investigate this when it was raised and then to acknowledge this subsequently under the complaint procedure resulted in inconvenience for the resident who had to pursue the complaint through the Ombudsman service.
  5. Once logged, the stage one response was issued on 1 June 2020 which was within the service standard for stage one complaints and the subsequent stage two response was also offered in the expected timescale.

Determination (decision)

  1. In accordance with paragraph 54 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme there was service failure by the landlord’s delay in logging the formal complaint.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 54 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme there was no maladministration by the landlord in its response to the repair about the communal front door.

Reasons

  1. The landlord did not progress the formal complaint about the communal door in March when the resident raised this; it did so subsequently in May when the Ombudsman requested that it do so. Having acknowledged this delay in its communication to the resident it did not meet the resident’s request to subsequently include this in its investigation within its formal complaint process, which would have been appropriate.
  2. The landlord’s records demonstrate that it responded appropriately when the report of the communal door was raised in February. This is because its operatives attended within the timescale under its repairs policy and the landlord reasonably relied on the operative’s confirmation that the work was completed. The landlord then responded reasonably to the subsequent reports of problems, as it conveyed the options to have the door inspected once the pandemic restrictions allowed.

Orders

  1. Within four weeks of the date of this report the landlord is ordered to pay the resident £50 compensation for inconvenience caused to her by the delay in logging the formal complaint. The landlord is requested to confirm compliance with the Ombudsman once this has been completed.

Recommendations

  1. Within four weeks of the date of this report the landlord is recommended to update the resident about the status of the inspection of the communal door job, if this remains outstanding.
  2. The landlord is recommended to familiarise itself with the Housing Ombudsman complaint handling code, which found on the Ombudsman’s website: https://www.housing-ombudsman.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Complaint-Handling-Code.pdf