L&Q, one of England’s largest social landlords, has been ordered by the Housing Ombudsman to pay out £142,000 in compensation to residents.
The move follows the conclusion of the Ombudsman’s special investigation into L&Q, through which the landlord was found to have “consistently failed” to resolve vital issues.
While the landlord has since developed an action plan in response to the report, the Ombudsman says it “remains cautious”, with a similar flurry of new policies having “little to no impact” on residents’ lived experienced and service delivery.
In the report, the Ombudsman made 103 determinations involving L&Q in the months from January to June 2023, spanning 30 local authority areas.
Overall, the Ombudsman found a severe maladministration rate of 13% – more than double the national average of 6% – for disrepair, poor repair services, mishandling of charges for leaseholders, and failures supporting residents experiencing anti-social behaviour.
In one case investigated by the Ombudsman, internal emails show staff reacting to failed repairs by suggesting the landlord send a supervisor instead of a surveyor, because “at least he looks like the surveyor”.
In another case, they said they needed to take action so not to “appear on ITV News again”.
The landlord also told another resident it would pay compensation only if they agreed to a confidentiality clause in their tenancy agreement.
The Ombudsman said common themes among the complaints were a failure to listen to residents and a repeated failure to respond fairly to vulnerable residents – especially where the resident had a disability or mental health problems.
Remedies and recommendations
As a result of these findings and the Ombudsman’s subsequent conclusions, the body has set out nearly 500 remedies for L&Q, including apologising to residents and delivering repairs.
The Ombudsman has also awarded £141,860 in compensation for residents – 14% of all compensation ordered by the Ombudsman in those six months on only 6% of all decisions.
The Ombudsman has identified six key themes and set out a series of recommendations:
- Complaints-handling – The Ombudsman has recommended L&Q design monitoring criteria to track performance and implement quality assurance checks and review the equalities information held on casework to inform an objective assessment of whether its diverse communities are being appropriately served
- Compensation – It is critical landlord consider reasonable awards for time taken as well as distress, the Ombudsman said
- Vulnerabilities – The Ombudsman has recommended training for all staff on service adjustment needs and review staff objectives and recruitment on customer focus and values; this includes mechanisms for possible disciplinary action where courtesy and respect is found to be at fault
- Repairs – The Ombudsman has recommended that L&Q design monitoring criteria to track the progress of its Repairs Change Project and make improvements to its record-keeping
- Damp and mould – The landlord failed to consistently identify damp and mould as the root cause of many of its disrepair cases, leading to reports of damp and mould treated in isolation, something the Ombudsman said L&Q should rectify
- Anti-social behaviour – The landlord did not follow its own ASB policy, something the Ombudsman said L&Q should rectify
Expanding landlords warned
In 2016, L&Q completed the acquisition of East Thames; and in 2019, the landlord acquired Trafford Housing Trust in the north-west of England, taking its total number of homes under management to more than 100,000.
Richard Blakeway, Housing Ombudsman, said L&Q’s failures were in part born from its recent growth.
Blakeway said: “While the landlord makes a significant contribution to housing and has many committed staff, the scale of the findings in this report are indicative of a period of significant failure in its services.
“Resident concerns were repeatedly dismissed or poorly handled, without the respect they or their issues deserved. Crucially, the needs of vulnerable residents were not always identified, and too often this caused serious detriment and risk to them.
“The landlord consistently failed to take sufficient action on its own monitoring and warning signs that were evident in its complaints and independent reviews – leading to a prolonged period of decline, especially in areas like repairs and complaints-handling.
“Rather than address the core issues, the landlord continued to firefight individual issues.
“This resulted in new policies, initiatives, and reports, which failed to resolve its cultural failures in areas like repairs and complaints, resulting in these activities having little impact on service delivery.
“This has led to a decline in professionalism, with dedicated and committed staff being let down by the poor culture and professionalism of others.
“We welcome the steps the landlord is taking in response to our investigation, but it needs to go further.
“This time it must embed change. It must not let the illusion of activity distract from real change. Its residents deserve better; they are impatient to see change.
“We’ve seen when landlords go through organisational change such as a merger that problems with complaints and systems occur.
“There is a need to ensure that growth is compatible and sustainable with decent resident services.
“Other landlords whose operations are expanding should consider what lessons this report could offer them.”
‘Truly sorry’
In a statement provided to Housing Digital, Fiona Fletcher-Smith, group chief executive at L&Q, said: “We recognise that we’ve got things wrong, and we welcome this extremely valuable learning process.
“My senior leadership colleagues and I are personally contacting the residents whose complaints the Ombudsman judged to have involved service failure or maladministration on our part.
“We have apologised for the completely unacceptable service they have received. L&Q has let them down, and I’m truly sorry for that.
“What really matters to us is putting things right for residents and using the report’s learnings to correct historic failings, continue building a resident-centred culture, and ensure we deliver a quality service every time.
“The Ombudsman’s investigation draws conclusions from complaints made between March 2019 and October 2022, a period when our services were severely disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic.
“As the Ombudsman has recognised, when I became chief executive in 2021, the board and I put in place a new five-year improvement and investment strategy to tackle the problems that had emerged.
“This was developed through listening to residents, and resolutely focused on the safety and quality of existing homes and services.
“We’re almost halfway through the delivery of this strategy and have already made significant progress to address the operational issues highlighted in this report.
“Measures include launching a £3bn, 15-year major works investment programme that will make sure every resident’s home is safe, decent and more energy-efficient, implementing a new localised housing management approach that has put 30% more frontline colleagues in local neighbourhoods, and improving the quality and responsiveness of our repairs service through a change programme, which has already delivered a 20% increase in first-time-fix on day-to-day repairs.
“We’re also developing new systems and ways of working to improve how we manage our data and information, and how we communicate with residents, and in particular vulnerable residents who may need different types of support.
“I’m pleased the Ombudsman has endorsed these plans and recognised that we have a dedicated and committed team to deliver it.
“I welcome both our residents’ and the Ombudsman’s input on how we can further strengthen, accelerate and embed the positive changes we’re making.”
Image: mapo_japan/Shutterstock
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