Peabody Trust (202202611)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202202611

Peabody Trust

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 complaint is about the landlord’s:
   1. Response to the resident’s concerns about a phone call made to her by the landlord.
   2. Complaint handling.

Background

2. The resident is an assured tenant of the landlord. Her carer and representative has conducted this complaint on her behalf.
3. The representative wrote an email to the landlord on 28 February 2022 enquiring about a recent telephone call where, he said, the landlord told him that a complaint had been made about her leaving bin bags in the communal area outside the property. The representative explained that, due to a history of anti-social behaviour (ASB) experienced by the resident, he suspected the reports were malicious and wanted more information about them. The representative alleged that the landlord was not treating the resident’s concerns in the same way it was treating other residents. The representative chased a response on 14 March 2022.
4. The representative raised a complaint on 23 March 2022. He explained that he had posed various questions to the landlord about the reports alleging that the resident had left bin bags outside, but it had not yet responded. He was seeking a response to his questions and suggested staff training to deal with “unfounded complaints against vulnerable tenants”.
5. The landlord treated the complaint as an expression of dissatisfaction and issued an informal response on 13 April. It apologised for the resident’s dissatisfaction with its approach in dealing with the situation. It explained that its call had been to follow up on reports of bin bags being left on the landing. It said that it had not known who had left the bags, and had spoken to all residents. It said that it had not accused the resident of being the perpetrator, and apologised for any offence caused.
6. The representative contacted this Service on 9 May 2022 as he felt the landlord had not answered his queries. This Service requested the landlord to issue a complaint response on 27 May 2022. The landlord provided a stage one response on 29 June 2022. It explained the situation, confirming that it had been following up on the reports received and had contacted every resident on the floor. The landlord apologised for the resident feeling offended and offered £100 for the inconvenience caused.
7. The representative wrote to the landlord on several occasions in July to express his dissatisfaction with its response. He also complained (in an email on 11 July 2022) that he had been given contradictory information by the landlord and its external customer satisfaction company about his complaint’s status. The landlord acknowledged that the resident wanted to escalate his complaint, and issued a final response on 6 September 2022. It explained that it had interviewed the officer who called the representative. The officer had confirmed the intention had been to remind them to be mindful when disposing of rubbish, not to accuse the resident at any time. The landlord concluded the officer had acted in accordance with the functions of her job. It confirmed that the block caretakers had not made any further reports about rubbish since that time. The landlord apologised, explained how it had learnt from the complaint, and offered £175 for time and trouble and complaint handling failures.
8. The representative referred the complaint to this Service as he was dissatisfied with the landlord’s response. He raised additional issues regarding antisocial behaviour, fire risks, impact on health to the resident and unequal treatment by the landlord.

Assessment and findings

Scope of Investigation

9. In the complaint to this Service, the representative explained that “at a superficial level my complaint may just appear a concern over the landlord’s inadequate procedures for dealing with tenants, but there is a far more serious matter to be considered. The ‘alleged complaint’ over a recycling bag concerned a very vulnerable tenant … who has been the object of much bullying, sexism and anti-social behaviour over a long period time”. The resident has submitted a separate complaint to this Service relating to the landlord’s handling of ASB. This investigation will therefore solely focus on the landlord’s handling of the resident’s concerns about the phone call. Any wider concerns about the landlord’s handling of ASB issues will be considered (where relevant and appropriate) in the separate investigation.
10. Moreover, in line with paragraph 42 (c) of the Housing Ombudsman’s scheme this Service cannot investigate aspects of a complaint which have not exhausted a member’s complaint procedure, as the landlord needs to be given the opportunity to formally respond. Although the representative mentioned concerns about fire hazards in the complaint, the landlord’s final response is a review of its previous responses (where the issue had not been raised). As set out in the Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code, “landlords must only escalate a complaint to stage two once it has completed stage one”. As these matters have not exhausted the landlord’s complaints process, they cannot be investigated here. It is however recommended that the resident raises the issue with the landlord if she remains concerned.
11. The representative has stated that the issues considered here have exacerbated the resident’s medical conditions. It is beyond the expertise of this Service to make a determination on whether there was a direct link between the landlord’s handling of the resident’s concerns and her medical condition. Such concerns are usually better dealt with as a legal personal injury claim.

The phone call

12. The representative emailed the landlord on 28 February 2022 to enquire about the phone call he had received. He explained his concerns (on behalf of the resident), and raised a number of questions he wanted the landlord to address. Not receiving a response, he emailed again in March. The landlord failed to respond to these emails. It goes without saying that any landlord should respond promptly to any enquiries they receive from tenants, and it was not reasonable for the landlord to have not done so here. An appropriate response might have prevented the resident from raising a complaint and ensured an early resolution. The landlord has not acknowledged nor apologised in its complaint responses for not responding to the representative’s initial correspondence. That constitutes a failing, both in its initial customer service, and in its handling of the complaint.
13. The landlord responded to the representative’s complaint and concerns in its complaint responses. It explained the reason and circumstances of the call, and emphasised that it had been made to all local tenants, not only to the resident.
14. The specific questions the representative asked of the landlord centred on his belief that a complaint had been made about the resident in particular. His concerns about possibly vexatious intentions flowed from that. The landlord did not answer those specific questions in the manner they had been posed, and that was partly what drove the representative’s escalated complaint. However, the landlord had explained from the start that there had been a misunderstanding, and that no complaint had been made about the resident in particular, only that reports of incorrectly placed rubbish had been received and the persons responsible were not known. That explanation answered the representative’s first question (“when was the complaint received”), and essentially made his subsequent ones redundant, because they were based on a misinterpretation of the original phone call’s nature.
15. Overall, nothing in the evidence and information received from the representative or the landlord suggests that the landlord’s call to the resident was unreasonable. In response to the questions and concerns raised by the representative the landlord provided clear and reasonable explanations. It is apparent that some of the concerns expressed by the representative were affected by previous interactions, such as the resident’s ASB experiences, but, as explained above, those other factors are not considered in this report.
16. While the phone call, and the landlord’s explanations for it, were reasonable, the landlord failed to appropriately acknowledge or remedy the main issue that triggered the complaint i.e. the lack of response to the representative’s initial enquiries.

Complaint handling

17. The Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code (the Code) sets out that it is not appropriate to have a “stage 0 or pre-complaint” stage. Because of that, it was inappropriate for the landlord not to deal with the representative’s March 2022 complaint through its complaints process. Nonetheless, the landlord acknowledged and apologised for its action, in its first formal complaint response. It also provided compensation, which was in line with the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance where it is not possible to put a complainant back in the position they would have been but for the mistake. These actions suitably remedied the failing.
18. The landlord’s complaints policy sets out that a response to stage one complaints will be provided within ten working days. The landlord took twenty-two working days since this Service requested an official response. Moreover, a stage two response should have been provided within twenty working days of the request being received. The landlord took forty-seven working days to issue a final response. There is no evidence of the landlord updating the representative about these delays, or of agreeing new deadlines with him, which is what the Code explains should happen. However, the landlord acknowledged that its complaint responses had been delayed, apologised, and offered further compensation. These remedies were in line with the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance where there have been delays of a short duration.
19. In his escalation request the representative added a complaint about recent contact by an external customer satisfaction company, and confusion about whether his complaint was still open or not. The Code sets out that a new issue raised after the stage one complaint response has been issued should be logged as a new complaint. There is no evidence that the landlord did so in this case, or that it addressed his concerns. That omission was a failing. While the overall compensation offered by the landlord for its complaint handling failings was reasonable, these specific issues of complaint have not been addressed.

Determination

20. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman scheme there was service failure in respect of the landlord’s response to the resident’s concerns about a phone call made to her by the landlord.
21. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme, there was service failure in respect of the landlord’s complaint handling.

Orders

22. In light of the failings found in this report, the landlord is ordered to:
    1. Within four weeks, pay the resident £200 for its failure to acknowledge and investigate the lack of response to the representative’s initial enquiries.
    2. Investigate and explain to the resident how the representative’s initial enquiries were missed, and how it has improved its processes so as to avoid a repeat of the same issue. This explanation should be provided within six weeks of this report.
    3. If it has not done so already, within four weeks pay the resident the £175 it has already offered in relation to its complaint handling.
    4. Also within four weeks, the landlord should respond to the complaint raised by the representative about the customer satisfaction survey and resulting confusion about the status of the complaint (as set out in his email dated 11 July 2022).
23. Evidence of compliance with each of these orders must be provided by the landlord to this Service by the specified deadlines.