Paragon Asra Housing Limited (202109830)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202109830

Paragon Asra Housing Limited

31 August 2022

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 concerns:
   1. How the landlord handled the cleaning of the carpet in the communal area of the building following a report from the resident.
   2. The associated formal complaint into this matter.

Background

2. The resident is an assured tenant of the landlord, which is a housing association. The property is a flat in a communal building.
3. The resident called the landlord on 23 July 2021 to inform it of a strong odour in his property from what he suspected to be faeces on the carpet in the communal area of the building. The landlord arranged to have the carpet cleaned on 24 July 2021. The resident called the landlord again on 26 July 2021 and requested to raise a formal complaint into the matter as he was dissatisfied with how the landlord had organised the cleaning of the carpet as the odour from the faeces remained.
4. A stage one complaint response was sent to the resident on 14 October 2021. The landlord apologised to the resident and recognised that the issue took too long to resolve and that he had received a poor level of service. Following an escalation request by the resident, the landlord sent a stage two complaint response on 3 November 2021. The landlord accepted that its stage one response had not provided sufficient detail of the issues the resident had raised. The landlord explained that it had spoken with the staff members and contractors involved in responding to the resident and arranging the cleaning of the carpet, and that it had also listened to the calls the resident had made on 23 and 26 July 2021.
5. The landlord accepted that its communication had been poor and that this had resulted in a delay in completing the cleaning work. It also noted that it had not opened a complaint when first requested which caused inconvenience to the resident in chasing the matter. The landlord apologised to the resident, explained that it had taken steps internally to improve its processes and offered £100 compensation.
6. In referring the complaint to this Service, the resident described the outstanding issues to the complaint as that he did not believe the landlord had undertaken a sufficiently in-depth investigation into how it had handled the cleaning and he did not believe that the current health and safety policies the landlord has in place are fit for purpose.

Assessment and findings

Relevant Policy and Procedures

7. The landlord’s maintenance policy states that emergency work will be attended to and made safe within four hours and rectified within 24 hours. An emergency repair is defined by the landlord as work that “immediately affects health, safety or security and would endanger life, or, if not repaired or will damage the fabric of the building”.
8. The landlord operates a two-stage complaints process. When a complaint is received, the landlord aims to provide a response at stage one within ten working days. If the complainant is dissatisfied with the response, they can request an escalation of the complaint to the next stage. The landlord will then undertake a review of the complaint and provide a stage two response within 15 working days. This will be the landlord’s final response to the complaint.
9. The complaints policy also states that if the landlord is unable to provide the responses within its published timescales, that the complainant “will be kept informed and regularly updated on the reasons for this”.
10. The landlord’s compensation policy states that it will consider offering discretionary compensation when it has “failed to meet its own service targets”. The policy recommends a payment of £20 to £100 in cases of a medium level of impact on a complainant (“a succession of service failures and/or the problem is not resolved within a reasonable timescale”) and a payment of £100 to £500 in cases of a high level of impact on a complainant (“serious or prolonged service failure or loss of facilities resulting in severe stress, disruption, inconvenience or loss of income”).

How the landlord handled the cleaning of the carpet in the communal area of the building following a report from the resident

11. Once the landlord had been informed on 23 July 2021 by the resident of the faeces in the communal area it was obligated to attend and resolve the issue in a timely manner in line with its policies and procedures. It was appropriate for the landlord to deem the incident an emergency in line with its maintenance policy and arrange for cleaning to go ahead on 24 July 2021. However, the resident then contacted the landlord and the contractor on 26, 27, 28 and 30 July 2021 to inform them that while the faeces had been cleared, a strong odour remained. The contractor did not return to the building to undertake further cleaning until 5 August 2021.
12. Following the 5 August 2021 cleaning, the contractor informed the landlord that the odour remained, and the carpet may have to be replaced. Additional cleaning of the carpet was undertaken on 6 August 2021. The resident then informed the landlord that the odour was no longer present after the additional cleaning. Despite this report from the resident, it was appropriate for the landlord to act on the advice from its contractor and arrange an inspection on 9 August 2021 to determine if the carpet needed to be replaced. The inspection recommended a deep clean of the whole carpet in the building. This was arranged for 16 August 2021 and photographs were provided to the landlord by the contractor of the completed work. The next scheduled site inspection, held on 20 September 2021, graded the internal communal areas of the building, including the carpeting, as “A”.
13. Therefore, there is no evidence of service failure in how the landlord handled the cleaning between 5 and 16 August 2021. It arranged the work in a timely manner and acted on the advice and recommendations of the contractors and staff members to ensure that the carpet had been completely cleaned and that it did not require to be replaced. The subsequent site inspection confirmed that the issue had been resolved.
14. However, there was service failure in the period between the July and August cleaning, which was acknowledged by the landlord. The landlord acted appropriately in launching an investigation to determine what went wrong and what lessons it could learn from its mistakes. It then informed the resident of its findings in the stage two complaint response. This approach is also in line with the Ombudsman’s Dispute Resolution Principles: be fair, put things right and learn from outcomes.
15. The landlord’s investigation determined that there was a breakdown of communication as the resident was not made aware that he should have contacted the landlord’s central hub so work orders could then be raised to arrange further cleaning, and that its contractors had not passed on the resident’s reports to the hub. The landlord also determined that the resident had been given conflicting advice from it and its contractors as to the status of the cleaning. The investigation also looked into the circumstances of why the complaint was not opened when first contacted by the resident on 26 July 2021 (this aspect of the complaint is discussed in more detail below).
16. The landlord further investigated an incident highlighted by the resident relating to a conversation he had with two cleaners on 26 July 2021. The landlord spoke with its staff members in its neighbourhood team and its contractors and was able to confirm that no contractor operatives were on site on that date and the individuals the resident spoke with were not landlord staff members or contractor employees. The landlord acted appropriately in this matter, by acting on the information given by the resident and determining that the individuals concerned were not connected to the landlord or its contractors.
17. The landlord acted fairly in acknowledging its mistakes and explaining what it did wrong. It looked to put things right by apologising to the resident and awarding compensation. It looked to learn from its errors by making changes to how its staff responded to calls when the caller raised a complaint, to ensure the request was passed on to its complaints team. It also spoke with its contractor regarding how it handled contact with residents and asked it to make sure this correspondence was passed on to its central hub, where work such as repairs and cleaning could then be raised and appointments made where necessary, to prevent a similar situation with delayed cleaning work.
18. The compensation payment was made by the landlord in line with its compensation policy at the recommended payment level for a medium/high level of service failure. However, it is not clear from the stage two response what proportion of this compensation was in recognition for the delays in completing the cleaning and what was for the delays in the complaint process (which is considered below).
19. The landlord acted appropriately in apologising to the resident and informing him of the lessons it had learned from the complaint. It clearly recognised and accepted that its service had been poor, and the actions it took to remedy that were, with one exception, reasonable and appropriate. The exception being the level of compensation it offered to the resident. This was made in line with its compensation guidance, but it was disproportionately low when considering the level of inconvenience caused to the resident in having to chase both the landlord and the contractor in order to have further cleaning undertaken to remove the odour still present from the original cleaning. Accordingly, while the landlord’s handling of the resident’s complaint at stage two was good overall, the omission of a fair and reasonable consideration of compensation was a service failure.
20. The Ombudsman’s own remedies guidance (which is available on our website) recommends a payment of £50 to £250 in cases of service failure resulting in some impact on a complainant. As an example of when this level of redress should be considered, the guidance suggests “failure to meet service standards for actions and responses but where the failure had no significant impact”. Therefore, it would be appropriate for the landlord to pay the resident £150 in recognition of: the ten-working-day delay in arranging cleaning to fully resolve the issue, the poor communication from the landlord, and for the inconvenience caused to the resident in having to contact both the landlord and contractor numerous times in order for the cleaning to go ahead.
21. In bringing the case to this Service, the resident stated his dissatisfaction with the landlord’s current health and safety protocols and has said that these should be reviewed and updated in light of how his complaint was handled.
22. It is not within the remit of this Service to order a landlord to make changes to its published policies and procedures documents. However, landlords undertake periodic reviews of its policies, and it should be noted that a review and update to the landlord’s health and safety policy is scheduled to take place from September 2022. Therefore, it is recommended that the landlord contact the resident and inform him of how he can provide feedback to it relating it its upcoming review of its health and safety policy.

The landlord’s complaint handling

23. The landlord has recognised that there were delays during the complaint process and that it did not properly follow its complaint policy. The resident first requested to raise a complaint on 26 July 2021 and a stage one response was not provided until 14 October 2022: a period of 59 working days.
24. The landlord acknowledged that it did not open a complaint on 26 July 2021 when first requested to and that it took an email from the resident on 10 August 2021 chasing the matter before a formal complaint was opened.
25. The landlord also wrote to the resident on 27 August 2021 to inform him that there would be a delay in providing the stage one response. The landlord’s internal correspondence showed that during this period it had launched its investigation into the elements of the complaint raised by the resident and was in communication with its staff members involved in the cleaning, the contractors responsible for undertaking the cleaning and listening back to telephone call recordings from the resident reporting the issue and requesting to raise a complaint.
26. It was reasonable for the landlord to delay the complaint response until it had heard back from these parties to enable it to complete its investigation and to provide a full response to the resident. However, the landlord did not follow its complaint policy as it did not properly update the resident on the status of the complaint during this period or provide him with a revised deadline of when the complaint response would be sent.
27. The landlord acted appropriately in apologising to the resident in the stage two complaint response for these delays and taking its offer of £100 compensation into consideration, as previously stated, the Ombudsman’s own remedies guidance recommends a payment of £50 to £250 in cases of service failure resulting in some impact on a complainant, this was reasonable, in recognition of the delay in providing the stage one response and for its poor communication in keeping the resident updated on the status of the stage one response while it completed its investigations.

Determination

28. In accordance with paragraph 54 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was service failure by the landlord in respect of how it handled the cleaning of the carpet in the communal area of the building following a report from the resident.
29. In accordance with paragraph 55(b), the landlord offered reasonable redress for the filings with its complaint handling.

Orders

30. For the service failure and reasons set out above, the landlord is ordered to pay to the resident £150. This payment should be made within four weeks of the date of this report. The landlord should update this Service when payment has been made.

Recommendations

31. The Ombudsman recommends that the landlord pays the £100 compensation offered by it in its complaint process, if it has not done so already as the finding of reasonable redress was based on this.
32. It is also recommended that the landlord contact the resident and inform him of how he can provide feedback to it relating it its upcoming review of its health and safety policy.