Clarion Housing Association Limited (202325106)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202325106

Clarion Housing Association Limited

24 September 2024

 

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 request for a management transfer following incidents of antisocial behaviour.
    2. Handling of the associated formal complaint.
    3. Record keeping with respect to the issues.

Background

  1. The resident holds an assured tenancy of a 3-bed terraced house owned by the landlord. She lives there with her father and 3 children and all but 1 family member have health issues. The resident is asthmatic and has anxiety. Her daughter has autism, anxiety, and depression. While it was informed by the resident of her and her daughter’s vulnerabilities at the time of the complaint, the evidence supplied by the landlord does not set out the household vulnerabilities.
  2. The resident raised a complaint on 18 January 2023 as her request for a management transfer had been refused. She said her daughter was at risk and required an urgent move. The police were investigating a sexual assault reported by her daughter at the time. She also said she had originally requested a management transfer in 2021 due to antisocial behaviour experienced by her daughter.
  3. The landlord issued a stage 1 response on 16 February 2023 when it addressed the resident’s complaint and apologised for the response delay. It stated that her complaint was not upheld as the police had not considered the resident’s household to be at risk, so its management transfer criteria had not been met.
  4. The resident remained dissatisfied and escalated her complaint on 10 March 2023 with further information being added to it on 14 March 2023. Following the involvement of this Service on 15 December 2023, the landlord issued a stage 2 response on 20 December 2023, which addressed the matters in the resident’s complaint. While it did not find any failings with its stage 1 response or management transfer process, it stated that it had agreed to a transfer on a discretionary basis outside of its policy. It also apologised for its stage 2 response delay and said it had learnt lessons, one of which as regarding logging emails correctly. Finally, it offered £250 compensation.
  5. The resident escalated her complaint to the Ombudsman. The resolution the resident seeks includes a move to a nearby area and additional compensation.

Assessment and findings

  1. The resident has said the issues, which are the subject of her complaint, date back to 2021. The scope of this investigation has been limited to considering matters raised in the 6 months prior to the resident making a formal complaint. This is in line with paragraph 42.c. of the Scheme and therefore this investigation will only consider matters since 17 July 2022 to the end of the landlord’s internal complaint process on 20 December 2023. Relevant factors outside this period may however be referenced for contextual purposes.
  2. The Ombudsman is unable to establish liability, if a landlord’s actions or lack of action had a detrimental impact on a resident’s health or, award damages. The resident has stated the landlord’s actions around the management transfer process has had a negative impact on both her and her daughter’s health. The issues the resident says she has experienced include stress and anxiety. In addition, she has said her daughter is anxious, afraid to go out, has self-harmed, and has experienced an episode of severe psychosis. Her daughter receives counselling and prescribed medication for her health issues.
  3. The Ombudsman has not considered this aspect of the complaint as the issues are likely better suited to consideration by a court or via a personal injury claim. However, we have assessed the extent to which the landlord took the resident’s reports of these vulnerabilities into consideration in handling the matter.

Landlord’s handling of a management transfer request following incidents of anti-social behaviour

  1. The landlord’s management transfer policy sets out when it will rehouse tenants outside its allocations criteria. For example, a “serious risk of harm or threat” to a resident or their family making it unsafe to live at the property. Such a risk has to be confirmed in writing by “the police or other specialist professional agency”.
  2. In January 2023, it appropriately contacted the police in line with its policy, who stated the facts did not support a transfer and there was no “immediate danger or risk of harm”. However, during its discussion with the police on 13 January 2023 it noted the resident’s daughter had been referred for counselling. Further, on 18 January 2023, the resident set out the health impact on her daughter and that she had been prescribed medication for anxiety and sleep issues. This information should have triggered further enquiries with specialist professional agencies, like medical professionals or counselling services, to explore the mental health impact on the resident’s daughter. This could have been helpful, given that the police were only able to speak about the facts. The supplied evidence does not indicate it did this. Such enquiries may not have supported a transfer but the landlord’s failure to explore this was unreasonable.
  3. It is noted that a letter dated 20 January 2023 to the resident confirmed it had declined her request for a management transfer and also referred to a call informing her of its decision on 18 January. The call record indicates she was told to complain if she was unhappy with the decision. While the refusal letter set out appeal rights, it is noted the landlord closed the case on 3 February 2023 on the basis that no response or appeal had been received to the refusal letter of 20 January. The resident had responded to the verbal refusal decision by formally complaining on 18 January, as directed to, and further, her MP on 27 January also asked for the refusal to be reconsidered. Both communications were received within the appeal deadline and therefore, the appeal should have been processed accordingly. Its failure to do so was unacceptable and not in line with its policy.
  4. In her escalation request of 10 March 2023, the resident was very clear in describing the continuing impact on her daughter, including self-harming and experiencing a severe psychosis with disassociated hallucinations. This was a missed opportunity for it to proactively re-consider a management transfer by, for example, making enquiries with a specialist professional working with her daughter to re-assess the risk of harm in line with its policy. Had it done so, it would have shown it took the resident’s concerns seriously. Its failure to pursue this line of enquiry or meaningfully engage with the resident was unreasonable.
  5. The landlord’s correspondence is unclear around when a discretionary management transfer was put in place for the resident as follows:
    1. Internal emails on 21 September 2023 note that the landlord would approve a transfer for the resident with rent arrears.
    2. An email to the resident on 5 October 2023 confirmed an offer of a discretionary management transfer.
    3. The stage 2 response of 20 December 2023 confirmed its approval of a management transfer with arrears on a discretionary basis outside of its policy.
    4. While it is outside the scope of this investigation, an email was sent to the resident on 13 August 2024 confirming its agreement to a transfer after a discussion with her.
  6. The lack of clarity on this key issue is unacceptable as it means this Service is not able to properly consider the timeframes involved and the history of the approvals (e.g. if earlier offers had been withdrawn). What is clear however from the evidence is that while the landlord stated it has approved a management transfer at different times over a year, it has unreasonably failed to action it. This avoidable delay will have caused confusion and distress for the resident.
  7. The evidence fails to set out the precise reasons for the landlord’s management transfer approval. The 5 October 2023 letter simply states it had been working with the complaints team. While it falls outside the scope of this investigation, it is noted on 5 March 2024 that the landlord wrote to the resident’s MP suggesting that the fact that the resident was following a rent arrears payment plan had played a part in its decision. However, this is not set out in the stage 2 response which is vague, stating only that the decision was made due to “a review of the information relating to the reason for your request to move”. This lack of clarity is unsatisfactory and unfair to the resident who should be fully aware of the reasons given the transfer had been declined earlier in 2023. The lack of clarity around the precise reasons for the transfer also impacts on this Service’s ability to consider if the landlord’s discretion could have been engaged earlier after the resident originally requested a management transfer.
  8. The landlord’s safeguarding procedure states it identifies and protects vulnerable children “suffering from, or likely to suffer from, significant harm”. A screenshot shows no information recorded for the resident for “disablement”, “risk level”, or “vulnerability data”, and further, no such information has been supplied for the rest of her household. It is vitally important a landlord keeps accurate information about vulnerabilities to ensure it acts in line with its stated policy commitments.
  9. While the decision had been made not to agree a management transfer, the landlord still had safeguarding obligations due to the serious issues involved. Some vital issues to have been considered include: the resident’s daughter reporting a sexual assault following a history of reported harassment; the perpetrator living locally; and the significant mental health impact on her daughter. The landlord told the resident on 18 January 2023, that there was “not enough for safeguarding action”, but it would continue to discuss issues with partner agencies. There is no supplied evidence of such discussions with partner agencies.
  10. Despite the resident highlighting a serious deterioration in her daughter’s mental and physical health on 10 March 2023, the landlord failed to act to identify and support her. However, after a decant assessment call with the resident in September 2023, it requested that “sustainment be arranged to explore all options for the family and make sure that options already explore have been exhausted”. Thereafter a safeguarding referral was made on 25 September 2023. The evidence shows minimal safeguarding and welfare oversight of the resident and her daughter. It failed to proactively explore or action support in a timely way, given her account of her daughter’s increasingly deteriorating health, until the safeguarding referral.
  11. The Ombudsman accepts the landlord has limited stock and therefore any transfer should be in accordance with its published policy.
  12. While the landlord has acknowledged and apologised for some failings, it did not find any failures with its management transfer process. Consequently, it has failed to properly address or offer a remedy proportionate to the significant impact to the resident, and the apology offered was not reflective of the failings identified by our investigation. As stated above, it failed to make all appropriate enquiries to consider risk of harm to the resident’s daughter, delayed the actioning of the management transfer approval and also failed to progress an appeal. When all factors are considered, there was maladministration by the landlord in its handling of the resident’s management transfer request.

Complaint handling

  1. The landlord’s interim complaint policy states that it operates a 2-stage complaint process with responses being issued within 20 working days at stage 1 and 40 working days at stage 2 (peer review) of being logged. The complaint and escalations are to be logged within 10 days of receipt.
  2. The landlord’s complaints procedure differs from its interim policy in that it states responses will be issued within 15 working days at stage 1 and 20 working days at stage 2 (peer review).
  3. The Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code (the Code) at the time stated that complaints must be acknowledged and logged at stage 1 within 5 days of receipt of the complaint with stage 1 decisions issued within 10 working days of the complaint, and stage 2 decisions within 20 working days of the escalation.
  4. The landlord’s compensation policy sets out when it will pay compensation to a resident, including guidance around when compensation will or might be paid. Its guidance sets out single discretionary payments with banded values “to recognise a particular adverse effect and impact” on residents.
  5. The differing timescales in the interim complaints policy and the complaints procedure is confusing and unclear. For example, the stage 2 timescale was 40 days in the policy and 20 days in the procedure. Further, it was not compliant with the Code. For example, the stage 1 timescale in the policy and the procedure was in excess of the Code, which requires a response within 10 working days. This was unsatisfactory, however, it is noted from an updated complaints policy provided to this Service that its response timeframes are now in line with the Code.
  6. The landlord failed to provide timely acknowledgements of the resident’s complaints. For example, it acknowledged her complaint of 18 January 2023, 17 working days later, which was not compliant with its policy timescales or the Code. In addition, her escalation request was only acknowledged on 18 December 2023, approximately 9 months later, which was unreasonable.
  7. The landlord’s complaint responses were issued after 21 working days and approximately 200 working days at stage 1 and 2, respectively. This was a failing as both responses were more than the landlord’s policy timescales and the Code.
  8. It is evident the landlord’s delays and poor complaint handling caused inconvenience and distress to the resident preventing her from exhausting the landlord’s complaints process and bring her matter to this Service for investigation. The landlord has said it has learnt lessons from this case, some of which are with respect to logging emails correctly and passing to the relevant teams. It apologised for some failings and offered compensation. However, the offer was not proportionate to the distress caused to the resident. This Service finds maladministration in the landlord’s management of the resident’s complaint.

Record keeping

  1. The landlord’s record keeping indicates failings. We asked it to provide evidence in the form of, for example, all correspondence and contact notes. The landlord was asked by this Service to provide its evidence at different times as its supplied information highlighted further missing information. It is not the role of this Service to continually prompt the landlord to provide full information by repeating information requests.
  2. The evidence provided contains omissions including, but not limited to:
    1. Call records with the resident (e.g. August 2024 when she was informed of the transfer approval or the decant assessment call in September 2023).
    2. Correspondence sent to the resident (e.g. 13 August 2024), which has now been provided by the resident.
  3. This Service’s spotlight report on knowledge and information recommends that “records should tell the full story of what happened, when, and why” with records being clear and timely, accurately recording decisions and the reasons for them.
  4. Due to gaps in its supplied repair records, this investigation has been required to identify references to events within the landlord’s wider correspondence as well as using information provided by the resident.
  5. The omissions in the supplied evidence indicate poor record keeping by the landlord as it was not able to provide full information when asked. A landlord is expected to keep a clear, accurate and easily accessible record of contacts to provide an audit trail. If there is disputed evidence and no audit trail, we may not be able to conclude that an action took place or that the landlord followed its own policies and procedures. Therefore, the Ombudsman finds service failure by the landlord for poor record keeping.

Conclusion

  1. The Ombudsman previously ordered the landlord to carry out a review of its policy or practice under paragraph 54.f in relation to knowledge and information management and this Service’s spotlight on attitudes, respect and rights – relationship of equals report. Some of the issues identified in this case are similar to the cases already determined. The landlord has demonstrated compliance with our previous wider order, ordered as part of case 202214653, so we have not made any orders or recommendations as part of this case, which would duplicate those already made to landlord. The landlord itself should consider whether there are any additional issues arising from this later case that require further action.
  2. In addition, the Ombudsman made an order in respect of complaint handling as part of case 202233437. The landlord provided evidence that, in March 2024, it had complied with the order by updating its complaints handling policy to reflect the new Code and undertook training sessions with its customer solutions team around the Code and vulnerabilities. In view of this, we have not made further duplicate orders. However, the landlord must consider if any further appropriate action is required from the failings identified in this later case.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there has been:
    1. Maladministration in the landlord’s handling of a management transfer request following incidents of anti-social behaviour.
    2. Maladministration in the landlord’s complaint handling.
    3. Service failure in the landlord’s record keeping.

Orders and recommendations

  1. The landlord is ordered to take the following actions within 4 weeks of the date of this report. The landlord must provide the Ombudsman with evidence that it has complied with these orders:
    1. Pay the resident a total of £1075. The compensation must be paid to the resident and not offset against any debts owed to the landlord. This figure includes the landlord’s redress offer of £250 if it has not made this payment already. The compensation comprises:
      1. £500 for its handling of a management transfer request following incidents of antisocial behaviour. This reflects the detriment to the resident in the form of distress, time and trouble and inconvenience.
      2. £500 for its complaint handling. This reflects the detriment to the resident in the form of distress and inconvenience.
      3. £75 for its poor record keeping.
    2. A senior officer, director level or above, to meet with the resident to apologise for the failures in its service. The landlord’s apology should:
      1. Acknowledge the failings identified.
      2. Accept responsibility for it.
      3. Where appropriate, set out what steps have been taken to prevent a recurrence.
    3. If it has been provided with documents regarding the household vulnerabilities, update its records to reflect the resident’s household vulnerabilities.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 54(g) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, the landlord should undertake a senior management review of the case and present the findings to its senior leadership team and this Service within 10 weeks. The landlord must provide the Ombudsman with evidence that it has complied with these orders. The review should:
    1. Review its policies to:
      1. Include making appropriate and timely enquiries with all relevant agencies to assess the risk of harm criteria for a management transfer.
      2. Action management transfer approvals within a reasonable timescale from the approval decision.
      3. Ensure timely correspondence declining or approving management transfers with full and clear reasons.
      4. Coordinate relevant information received for the purposes of ensuring appeals are processed properly.