Peabody Trust (202221599)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202221599

Peabody Trust

27 February 2025

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 resident’s complaint is about the landlord’s handling of issues he reported with the cleaning service in his building, including its decision to share his name and address with its cleaning contractor.

Background

2. The resident holds an assured tenancy for a flat, which began in 2010.
3. The resident pays a weekly service charge for cleaning of the communal areas in the building. This was charged at:
   1. £1 per week in the financial year 2022-2023.
   2. £8.83 per week from April 2023.
   3. £9.47 per week from June 2023 to May 2024.
   4. £10.39 per week from June 2024.
4. The landlord used a contractor to carry out the cleaning of the building until February 2024, when this changed to its in-house cleaning team.
5. The landlord’s estate management policy says it will regularly inspect the standard of cleaning carried out. It says that cleaning will include sweeping and mopping communal areas, and keeping them free from “blockages, dangerous items, rubbish, and graffiti”.
6. The resident contacted the landlord in November 2022 to raise concerns with the quality of the cleaning of the building. He told it that the cleaner had missed a week, and had not done any cleaning when they attended the time before that. He described the building as “filthy”.
7. The landlord’s records show that it raised this to its contractor, which told it that the cleaner had attended every week and the “problem” was that residents left rubbish bags outside their front doors, as well as gathering on the stairs and “dropping juice and litter” which stained the floors.
8. It is unclear what the landlord did to follow this feedback up, and in March 2023 the resident remained dissatisfied. The landlord logged a stage 1 complaint, which it started investigating on 17 March 2023.
9. On 22 March 2023 the resident contacted the landlord and explained that the manager at the cleaning contractor had phoned him, and he was left with the impression that they wanted him to speak to the cleaner about the issues. The resident told the landlord he did not “understand” this approach, and that he would leave the matter with the landlord.
10. In its stage 1 complaint response to the resident, issued on 6 April 2023, the landlord acknowledged that the resident had made “regular” complaints about the standard of cleaning in the building, and that the promises that had been made to improve this had not been kept. It advised the resident that there had been changes to the management at the contractor, and the new managers had not been aware of the resident’s previous complaints. It confirmed that:
    1. The landlord accepted that “more stringent” inspections should be carried out by itself and the contractor, to ensure standards were met. It had asked the contractor to carry out more frequent inspections;
    2. The landlord accepted that it should keep residents updated about changes that may affect the service;
    3. The cleaner for the building had been replaced.
11. The resident responded to the landlord on 20 April 2023, and told the landlord that he had seen the cleaner at the building again that day. He expressed concern about whether the promised improvements would continue.
12. The landlord’s records show it contacted the contractor on 24 April 2023, and the contractor confirmed that it had agreed to and was in the process of changing the cleaner for the building. The contractor also indicated that responsibility for the management of the cleaning at the building had changed between different members of its staff.
13. The landlord’s records from early May 2023 show that the resident had reported to it that the cleaner had been told about his complaint and knocked on his door to discuss it. He expressed dissatisfaction with the landlord’s handling of the matter, and said he believed this was a breach of data protection rules. The resident told the landlord that if the matter was not resolved, he would log another complaint.
14. The resident has explained to us that the cleaner had knocked on his door early in the morning, had been annoyed at the fact that he had complained, and made him feel intimidated. The resident has explained to us that he was extremely distressed by the incident, and was worried that the cleaner could have physically attacked him. He explained that due to his physical health, he felt vulnerable and unable to defend himself. 
15. The resident was in contact with us in May 2023, and we asked the landlord to escalate his complaint to stage 2. The resident contacted us when he did not receive a stage 2 complaint response, and on 11 July 2023 we gave the landlord until 22 August 2023 to provide one to the resident.
16. The landlord issued a stage 2 complaint response to the resident on 7 August 2023. It:
    1. Said that it considered its stage 1 complaint a reasonable attempt to address the resident’s concerns, but it would “expand on some points”;
    2. Confirmed it had considered the resident’s reports over the last two years. It could see the resident contacted it about cleaning issues on 14 November 2022, and there was a gap of over a year prior to that where he had not reported problems;
    3. Advised that after the resident contacted it in November and December 2022 regarding the cleaning, it had asked its contractor to “follow up”. It explained that it was “not apparent” from its records whether this had been checked or followed up by the landlord;
    4. Said that its service manager had spoken to the resident and confirmed that the cleaner had been “removed” from the cleaning duties for the building. The landlord apologised for the “conduct” (behaviour) of the cleaner, and said it had fed back to the contractor that the behaviour was not what it “would expect”;
    5. Explained that it had an information sharing agreement with the contractor, and it was not therefore a breach of data protection rules for it to share the details of the resident’s complaint with it. It said that if the resident did not want the contractor to contact him directly in future, he could tell the landlord this;
    6. Acknowledged that its complaint handling “could have been better”, apologised, and offered the resident £368.50 compensation made up of:
       1. 50% of the resident’s cleaning charge from 14 November 2022 to 7 August 2023, totalling £18.50;
       2. £50 for not updating the resident regarding delays to its stage 1 complaint response;
       3. £50 in recognition that the resident “had to” escalate the matter to us at stage 1;
       4. £50 for its delay in escalating the complaint to stage 2;
       5. £25 for a one day delay in issuing its stage 2 complaint response, due to “unforeseen events”;
       6. £75 for “the number of shortcomings through the complaints process” and the cumulative impact on the resident;
       7. £50 for poor record keeping;
       8. £50 for poor communication and “not following up accordingly”.
17. The resident has explained to us that he remains dissatisfied with the standard of cleaning carried out at his building. He says that leaflets are not picked up, and that the cleaners use dirty water for mopping. He says he has had another run in with a cleaner when he tried to speak to them to warn them about a sewage leak from his flat.
18. The landlord has advised us that it has not received any further reports from the resident regarding the cleaning service since its in-house team took over management of the service in February 2024.
19. The landlord has provided us with inspection reports which show that it has been attending monthly to assess the standard of cleaning. It has observed times when there were leaflets, and also scuff/ dirt marks which it attributed to “misuse” of the communal areas, especially around belongings being left in them. Its records show that this matter was passed on to its neighbourhood management team to address. 

Assessment and findings

Sharing information with the contractor.

20. It is reasonable for the landlord to have a data sharing agreement with a contractor for regular services such as cleaning. This type of agreement is designed to ensure that only relevant information is shared between the landlord and contractor, in line with data protection principles. There is a distinction between information that is relevant to the delivery of the contracted service, and data that the landlord would have for other purposes, which would be unreasonable to share.
21. In this case, the landlord shared details of the resident’s complaint, with his name and address. This was a reasonable level of detail.
22. What followed was an incident where the cleaner who had been complained about knocked on the resident’s door. The resident has explained that he found the cleaner to be aggressive, and still finds the incident distressing to recall. It was inappropriate for the cleaner to challenge the resident in this way about having made a complaint. There is a difference between a contractor arranging to talk through a resident’s concerns with a view to making improvements or providing clarification about their responsibilities, and what is alleged here, which is that the member of staff at the contractor wanted to discourage the resident from making a complaint again.
23. The landlord acknowledged that the behaviour of the cleaner was not appropriate. It advised the resident that it had provided feedback on this to the cleaning contractor, which we would expect to see. However, we observe that additional reassurance could have been provided to the resident that robust steps had been taken to ensure that this would not happen again.
24. Any contractor carrying out work on the landlord’s behalf should be held to the same standards as its own staff. Had one of its own staff behaved in this way, we would expect the landlord to have investigated what happened, and to have considered any appropriate action under its disciplinary or staff management process. The landlord should have been able to share that level of detail with the resident. What we do know is that the cleaner was taken off duty at the resident’s building, and due to data protection rules we would not expect the landlord or contractor to be able to disclose full details of what steps they may have taken in response to the cleaner’s ongoing employment to the resident.

The standard of the cleaning.

25. In its stage 2 complaint response, the landlord reimbursed the resident for 50% of his cleaning charge across 37 weeks, in recognition that it did not properly engage with the concerns he had raised about the standard of cleaning. In our opinion this was a reasonable level of redress for this matter, because it recognised that the level of service and standard of cleaning did not fully meet expectations.
26. The landlord’s records show that it has engaged with the standards of the cleaning at the building after this point. The landlord carried out monthly inspections at the resident’s building (which continue to the present time), and its records demonstrate an appropriate level of detail was captured at each one about the standard of the cleaning.
27. The resident did not make further reports regarding the cleaning standard to the landlord. We acknowledge this may have been because he had escalated the complaint to us to investigate.
28. The landlord’s policy specifies that rubbish (which would include loose/ undelivered leaflets) should be cleared from the communal areas by the cleaners. The landlord’s inspections from 2024 show that it did recognise that this had not happened on some occasions, which it raised with its cleaning team, and also that it asked its neighbourhood management team to intervene to address belongings (including bicycles and trainers) being left in the communal area. It arranged for a deep clean to be carried out in March 2024 to improve the condition of the communal area, and has been monitoring dust, dirt and scuff marks.
29. The resident has advised us that hoovering and mopping did continue to take place, which the photos and inspections support. 
30. The landlord’s records show that by December 2024 it had noted positive improvement in the cleanliness in the building.
31. Overall, the landlord has taken a proportionate approach to the management of cleaning at the building. The photos we have seen from the resident, along with the inspection records the landlord provided, show that while there were months when issues were identified with the condition of the communal areas, the landlord took appropriate action to make improvements. This included a deep clean shortly after it brought the service ‘in-house’, and communication with both its cleaning and neighbourhood management teams about its expectations and standards.
32. The resident has raised concerns to us about the cleanliness of the mop water the current cleaners use, and explained that it smells. It would be appropriate for the landlord to follow this up with him. 

Behaviour of the landlord’s cleaning staff.

33. The resident has reported that he has had rude and confrontational responses from the landlord’s cleaning staff, when he has tried to talk to them. He told us that on one occasion they told him that they were not paid very much. This behaviour is something the landlord should investigate. We have not seen evidence that the matter has been directly raised to the landlord by the resident, and it must be given an opportunity to provide the resident with a response.

Summary.

34. In summary, the landlord has recognised that its service fell short prior to its stage 2 complaint response. Our opinion is that the compensation it offered at that time was proportionate to its failures to that time. While we recognise the resident’s distress arising from the incident with the cleaner who knocked on his door, we are satisfied that we have not seen any evidence of inappropriate information sharing between the landlord and its contractor.
35. Roughly one and a half years have passed since the stage 2 complaint response was issued to the resident. In that time, the cleaning service has changed to be delivered by the landlord itself. The resident and landlord have described similar issues with the consistency of cleaning in his building, however we have seen evidence that the landlord took appropriate and proportionate steps to address these, with the current situation being an improved one.
36. On the matters of the mop water and behaviour of the landlord’s cleaning staff, the events described by the resident are concerning. We are not aware of these being raised directly to the landlord and it is therefore important that the landlord contacts the resident to discuss his concerns and to explain to the resident what it will do as a result.
37. The landlord could have been clearer about the steps taken to address the behaviour by the cleaner employed by the former contractor. This would have gone some way to reassuring the resident that his concerns were being taken appropriately seriously, and this could potentially have resolved the matter sooner. It is reasonable to conclude that had he received a stronger response on this point, he may have felt more able to raise his current concerns about the new cleaners to the landlord.

Determination

38. In accordance with paragraph 53.b of the Housing Ombudsman scheme, the landlord has offered redress to the resident which, in the Ombudsman’s opinion, resolves his complaint about its handling of issues with the cleaning service in his building, and its decision to share his name and address with its cleaning contractor, satisfactorily.

Recommendations

39. We recommend that the landlord contacts the resident to take details of his concerns about the cleanliness of the mop water and the attitude of its cleaning staff, and provide the resident with a response that explains what actions it will take as a result.
40. We recommend that the landlord advise the resident of when it will be attending to carry out cleaning inspections over the next 3 months, and invites him to join it so that he can raise any new concerns to it.