The London Borough of Newham has been ordered to pay £800 in compensation to one of its tenants and provide training to staff in complaint handling following an investigation by the Housing Ombudsman.
The Ombudsman found that the council took an “excessively long time” to deal with a complaint about repairs following a leak and “failed” to apologise or offer appropriate compensation.
The Ombudsman concluded that there was a case of severe maladministration on the part of the council, stating the delay was unreasonable for a relatively straightforward complaint.
The complaint
Following a leak from a flat above, the London Borough of Newham temporarily moved the resident in question into accommodation elsewhere.
The resident contacted the council several times in order to get the repairs carried out but said he was unable to get through.
He then called the council’s call centre and said he was told that he could conduct the work himself, which he did and subsequently requested reimbursement.
The resident complained after receiving no response from the council.
The resident said he then had to pursue his complaint for more than 18 months before getting a final response, during which time the Ombudsman also contacted the council on at least seven occasions asking it to respond.
The council said it would not have advised the resident to carry out the work himself, but telephone recordings were only retained for six months and therefore the opportunity to review it was lost.
The Ombudsman also found the landlord had no specific policy on repairs, so was unable to determine who had responsibility for carrying out the repair work and could not order the council to recompense the resident.
Commenting on the investigation, Richard Blakeway, Housing Ombudsman, said: “The landlord took an excessively long time to respond to the formal complaint, failed to keep the resident informed, provide explanations for the delays or contact the resident despite numerous requests from this service.
“It also failed to check its records for the content of the phone call during the stage one complaint despite having ample opportunity, which was unacceptable.
“I welcome the landlord’s positive engagement with us on the learning from this complaint, including developing policies on repairs and compensation and the actions it is taking to implement our orders and recommendations.
“It has recognised where things have gone wrong, apologised and made a number of changes to policies and procedures to improve complaint handling for the benefit of its residents. I would encourage other landlords to consider the learning this report offers for their own services.”
Aside from ordering the council to compensate the resident concerned and provide training to staff, the Ombudsman also recommended the council produce a repairs policy that would outline the responsibilities of the parties and timescales for repairs.
Further, the Ombudsman recommended that the council produce and a compensation policy to address how and when it will consider making financial redress to a complainant.
Response: London Borough of Newham
“We sincerely apologise for the poor handling of this complaint and the long delays experienced by both the resident and the Ombudsman.
“We fully accept and acknowledge, that on this occasion, our service fell far short of the high standards we set for ourselves and which our residents have the right to expect.
“We have taken a number of lessons from our handling of this case and have made the following changes to our processes to ensure efficient handling of complaints:
- We have assigned dedicated senior officers to monitor all housing related complaints to ensure they are responded to comprehensively and within our published target times for complaint responses
- We have embedded senior management oversight into the process for all housing complaints, including escalated complaints and correspondence from the Ombudsman
- Both the Corporate Complaints Team and senior housing officers have completed the Housing Ombudsman training on complaints handling and we are implementing specific complaint handling training to all our housing staff. This will underpin our aim to achieve efficient resolutions of complaints and provide responsive resident engagement
“We have a new senior leadership team in place within housing and we will continue to develop our policies and processes to ensure residents understand the council’s obligations as their landlord.
“As a result of the Ombudsman’s recommendations in this case, our Compensation Policy has been created and we are committed to publishing our Repairs Policy once a thorough policy review is completed in April 2021.”
Image: Bacho/Shutterstock
Read next: 2,000 London homes to be powered by human waste
Are you a social housing professional? Sign up for a FREE MEMBERSHIP to upload news stories, post job vacancies, and connect with colleagues on our secure social feed.
