Places for People Homes Limited (201914946)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 201914946

Places for People Homes Limited

15 November 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 how the landlord communicated with the resident in relation to a gas safety check appointment.

Background and summary of events

2. The resident is a tenant of the landlord’s property. The property is a first floor, one-bedroom flat.
3. On 20 January 2020, the resident received a text message from the landlord in relation to an upcoming appointment. The resident had not arranged the appointment, and the message did not contain details of what it was in relation to. As such, the resident contacted the landlord to enquire what the appointment was about. The resident was put through to the landlord’s contractor who informed her that it had not been contracted for any jobs at her property. The resident could not be put back through to the landlord; however, she had hoped that it was the end of the matter given that the contractor did not have a job raised. 
4. However, the resident subsequently received a further email dated 28 January, advising of an appointment scheduled for 4 February. The email did not contain any further detail; and as the resident had not arranged it herself, she emailed the landlord on 30 January to raise a formal complaint. In her email, the resident explained that she was unavailable on 4 February, and that she considered the landlord should be more transparent with its information and notifications in relation to appointments.
5. The resident failed to receive a response and sent a further email on 3 February in which she confirmed that she would not be available to provide access for the scheduled appointment on 4 February. On 7 February, the resident informed the landlord that she wished to make a formal complaint as her previous emails had not been responded to or acknowledged. She requested that the landlord send her a paper copy of its complaint form accordingly.
6. Meanwhile, the job – a gas safety check – was rescheduled for 11 February; however, the resident was unable to provide access as she was only available in the morning, and the operative arrived late.
7. On 12 February, the resident emailed the landlord on a further occasion to advise that she had yet to receive a copy of the complaint form. The landlord responded via email on 14 February. The member of staff advised that she had been making enquiries with the Gas Team. The supervisor had confirmed that he spoke with the resident on 11 February and offered a new appointment. The resident had requested confirmation in writing, and it could confirm that a letter would be sent. It added that if the date was inconvenient, the resident should contact its Customer Service Centre so that it could be rescheduled. The landlord wrote to the resident on 19 February to confirm that the gas safety check had been rescheduled for 26 February.
8. However, the resident contacted the Ombudsman on 24 February as she was dissatisfied that she had yet to receive a response from the landlord in relation to her complaint. We contacted the landlord on the same day and asked it to get in touch with the resident in relation to her complaint within the next 21 days.
9. The landlord emailed the resident on 25 February to advise that a formal complaint had been logged. It provided the name of the member of staff who was dealing with the complaint, and advised that they would issue a written response on or before 10 March with the outcome of the complaint investigation.
10. The resident acknowledged the landlord’s email and asked if a call that took place on 11 February with a member of staff could be listened to. The resident added that the landlord’s call centre had mentioned an email that was sent to her on 14 February; however she had not received this. The resident asked if the landlord could re-send this accordingly.
11. The appointment did not go ahead on 26 February; and on the same day the landlord sent a further letter to the resident with an appointment scheduled for 4 March. The letter added that this was the resident’s “final notice”, and that if access was not provided her gas supply may be cut off and legal action taken. The gas safety check was completed on this date on 4 March.
12. On 10 March, the landlord responded to the resident’s complaint. In its letter it provided a timeline of the events that transpired, and explained the legal requirement to carry out gas safety checks annually. With regards to the resident’s concerns, it said:
    1. Its investigation had found that one of its contractors was late to attend an appointment and the communication around this was poor. It wished to apologise and explained that the engineer had been held up as a result of previous jobs during the morning and owing to heavy traffic. However, it added that this should have been communicated to the resident.
    2. The investigation had also highlighted an issue between the handling of scheduling of appointments by its subcontractor, and a lack of communication between the attending engineer and the resident. As a result, it would be discussing the matter with the subcontractor to see how it could do things better and prevent a reoccurrence.
    3. It wished to offer the resident the sum of £75 in recognition of the distress and inconvenience she had experienced as a result of the poor service she had received. This was comprised of £25 for “missed timescales”, and £50 for poor communication.
13. The resident confirmed that she was unhappy with the response on 12 March, and asked to progress to the next stage of the complaints procedure. The following day, the landlord asked the resident if she could advise why she was unhappy with the response, and what she was hoping for as a resolution.
14. Further correspondence was exchanged and on 16 April the resident confirmed the reasons why she was unhappy. In her email, the resident provided a detailed summary of the events that had transpired from 20 January 2020, and the inconvenience that she had been caused as a result. She said in particular that:
    1. She had arranged her affairs such that she could provide access for the appointment that was scheduled on 11 February. However, she was only able to provide access in the morning and not beyond 1pm as she had an appointment.
    2. She had called the landlord to explain this, and was told that she was down for a “first call” between 8am and 1pm. On the day itself, she called the landlord to ascertain when the engineer was likely to arrive. However, by 12pm he had still not arrived. The resident explained that as she had to leave home for an appointment, she called the landlord again. She said that the member of staff she spoke with agreed to call the engineer and to then call her back with an update. However, he did not phone.
    3. As she did not wish to run late for her appointment, the resident left home but called the landlord to advise that she was no longer able to provide access. She was informed that the appointment had been cancelled, and that she would have to call back to book a further appointment. The resident said that when she returned home, she found a ‘no access’ card.
    4. In the afternoon of 11 February, she had a conversation with the landlord’s contractor and was surprised that there was no acknowledgement of her “wasted morning”. The resident said that during the conversation, she asked for an update regarding her complaint, but the individual she spoke with was unable to comment further.
    5. On 25 February, an email she received referred to the engineer being 10 minutes late. She said that this led her to believe that her complaint had not been taken seriously, and she had not been listened to.
    6. In addition, the resident said that she was unhappy with the contents of the stage one complaint response for the following reasons:             
       1. It stated that operatives had been unable to gain access on 4 February, when she had cancelled this appointment.
       2. She was unhappy with references to having “refused access” in the complaint response as she had done nothing of the sort.
       3. The letter made reference to an appointment on 26 February; however, she had no knowledge of this.
    7. The resident said that to resolve her complaint, she wished for the above to be properly addressed.
15. On 20 April the landlord confirmed that it had escalated the resident’s complaint to stage two of the process. It added that she could expect a response on or before 19 May.
16. The landlord issued its stage two response to the complaint on 19 May. It said:
    1. The purpose of the review was to consider how the complaint had been dealt with at stage one of the process, and whether it had followed policy and procedure in dealing with the issues she had raised.
    2. In relation to the first text message the resident received, the wording did not mention what the appointment was in relation to. It would have been more informative if the text contained information in relation to what the appointment was for.
    3. When the resident contacted the contractor, they did not know of the appointment as their system had yet to be updated with the works request.
    4. It could not find any evidence that the resident’s email advising that she would not be available on 4 February had been passed on the works scheduling team, and it wished to apologise for this.
    5. The resident raised her complaint on 7 February; however, the relevant team failed to acknowledge this or provide a response. The resident’s initial complaint request had been logged as an expression of dissatisfaction – not a full complaint – in line with its policy. However, it could not see that it had informed the resident of this, and it wished to apologise.
    6. Regarding the appointment on 11 February, the Call Centre had logged the resident’s request for an early appointment. It had been recorded as “AM call 8.00am – 1.00pm as early as possible”. The first call appointment was not kept however, and the landlord acknowledged that the resident had to leave home. It apologised, and explained that it did not wish to waste either its customers’ or operative’s time.
    7. In relation to the resident’s request that a particular call recording be listened to, it was able to confirm that the call in question had not been recorded. It apologised that this request had not been acknowledged previously and explained that only calls to its Call Centre were recorded.
    8. It had noted the resident’s dissatisfaction with the timeline of events that had been detailed in the stage one response. It had since carried out an interrogation of its system and could provide a more accurate timeline of events.
17. The landlord concluded that taking into account the events in the resident’s case, it was clear that there had been poor service and communication. It would be using similar examples as part of a service improvement plan to go through with the Gas Team management to help improve the service provided. The landlord added that while the previous compensation offer was in line with its compensation policy, it felt that the amount in respect of poor communication needed to be increased to £100 – bringing the total amount of compensation to £125.
18. The resident replied to the landlord on 11 August. She explained that the response had only been brought to her attention the previous week and queried why a copy had not been sent by post. The landlord confirmed on 13 August that responses were sent via email where it holds an email address on file to speed up the response times and to ensure that the communication is successfully delivered. The resident and the landlord exchanged further correspondence and on 21 August the resident asked that the landlord did not credit her account with the compensation amount as she wished to reconsider the matter.
19. In return, the landlord informed the resident that she had exhausted its internal procedure and she could therefore refer her complaint to this Service if she remained unhappy.
20. The resident subsequently contacted the Ombudsman in September 2020. She explained that while she had initially accepted the outcome to the complaint, she was later forced to raise two further complaints. The resident explained that the complaints were time consuming, and she did not consider that any lessons were being learned. As a result, she felt that it was necessary to have the complaint reviewed by this Service.

Assessment and findings

21. When the resident raised her concerns with the landlord, it appropriately acknowledged the failings and shortcomings in the service it had provided. It is noted that the stage one response did not accurately reflect the circumstances that led to the complaint. However, the landlord’s investigation at stage two of the complaints process was thorough and the response demonstrated that it had taken time to consider the specific facts of the complaint and how the resident had been affected. This was appropriate.
22. In addition to apologising to the resident, and offering a remedy aimed at compensating her for the inconvenience she had been caused, the landlord explained that it would be working with the Gas Team to try to prevent similar errors and failures from occurring in the future. This demonstrates that the landlord was keen to learn from the mistakes highlighted by this case, and its actions were in keeping with the Ombudsman’s Dispute Resolution Principles.
23. While it is acknowledged that the resident was unhappy with other issues – not related to this complaint – the Ombudsman is satisfied that the landlord had acted appropriately and proportionately in relation to this complaint.

Determination (decision)

24. In accordance with paragraph 55 of the Scheme, the member landlord has offered redress to the complainant prior to investigation which, in the Ombudsman’s opinion resolves the complaint satisfactorily.

Reasons

25. In response to the concerns that were raised by the resident, the landlord appropriately identified where there had been failings in the service provided, offered the resident an apology and a proportionate amount of compensation. The landlord also agreed to make changes to its processes with a view to avoiding similar failings in the future.

Recommendations

26. Within four weeks of the date of this determination, the landlord should arrange to pay the compensation which was offered during its complaints process if this has yet to be accepted.
27. Within six weeks of the date of this determination, the landlord should write to the resident and the Ombudsman with further details of the service improvement plan and explain what specific actions have been taken to improve communication with the Gas Team.