Lambeth Council (202210024)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202210024

Lambeth Council

24 February 2023

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 handling of the resident’s window repairs, and his subsequent request for compensation.

Background

2. The resident is a tenant of the landlord.
3. In January 2022, the resident requested new handles on his property’s windows as they were loose and one had come off. In April 2022, the resident raised a complaint. He said he had been waiting for an update, and no one had contacted him. He was frustrated with the lack of communication and how long it was taking to complete the job. In a subsequent call he told the landlord he wanted compensation for the repair delay. The landlord acknowledged the complaint, and gave a target date of 20 May for a response.
4. The landlord responded on 24 June 2022. It apologised for the complaint delay. It confirmed that its contractors had told it a full window replacement was needed, and that they had informed the resident the replacement manufacturing time was six to eight weeks and he would be contacted when it was ready for fitting. The landlord partly upheld the complaint, on the basis that “some attempts have been made to repair your home prior to your complaint.” It did not explain what it meant by this.
5. The resident escalated his complaint almost immediately. He complained that the stage one response was five weeks overdue, he had had to chase for both repair and complaint updates, and that the landlord had ignored his compensation request. He said he wanted to be compensated for the inconvenience caused to him since January 2022. The landlord told him it would respond by 1 August 2022.
6. The landlord sent its final response on 11 August 2022. It acknowledged that the repair had been outstanding for “some time”, and had caused the resident inconvenience and upset. It explained that the parts were ready, and noted that the contractors had already arranged an appointment with the resident for the week commencing 12 September. 
7. The work was completed in November 2022.
8. The resident brought his complaint to this Service because he was dissatisfied that the landlord had ignored his request for compensation, and because of the landlord’s overall handling of the repair and complaint.

Assessment and findings

Policies and procedures

9. The landlord’s repairs manual states that non-urgent repairs will be attended to within seven working days.
10. Its complaints policy states that a stage one complaint will be responded to within twenty working days. There is no given timescale for a stage two response.

Repairs to the window handles and door lock

11. The repair manual and tenancy handbook state that repairs to window handles are the responsibility of a resident. Nonetheless, in this case, the landlord has accepted responsibility for them.
12. When the resident raised a repair for the window handles in January 2022, an operative attended on 20 May 2022. Nothing in the evidence, or the landlord’s complaint responses explains that initial significant delay. The resident was told at that point that parts needed to be manufactured and would take six to eight weeks. There is no evidence of any updates to the resident after that, until he was informed in the landlord’s final complaint response in August that the parts were ready, and scheduled for installation around 12 September. Nothing in the information provided for this investigation explains why it then took a further three months to complete the work in November.
13. It was understandable that the need to manufacture parts caused some delay. The landlord’s contractors told the resident that that could take up to two months. However, there is no explanation for the significant further delays either side of the manufacturing. There is also no evidence of clear updates to the resident, or any effort to manage his expectations. By any measure, the delays and lack of communication show clear failings by the landlord, well outside any relevant repair time frames.
14. The landlord had the opportunity to address these failings in response to the resident’s complaint. In its attempts to put things right in its stage one response it apologised for not responding sooner and stated a work order had been raised to fit new parts and that these parts would take six to eight weeks. That response was not reasonable, because the landlord did not look at redress for the delay, or explain why and how the delays had occurred.
15. In the landlord’s final response it acknowledged that its service had fallen below what it expected. It said it had raised the resident’s concerns internally to help improve its processes, but it did not respond to the resident’s compensation request, and again, did not explain how or why the delays occurred. Like the first response, the second was not reasonable. It did not address the points raised by the resident, and, while it acknowledged service failure and promised to improve future services, it did not seek to remedy the inconvenience and frustration caused to the resident individually – something he had explained in detail to the landlord. These are all counter to basic good complaint handling practice, and to the Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code.
16. When the resident raised his complaint on 21 April 2022, the landlord stated it would respond by 20 May 2022. The landlord provided its stage one response on 24 June 2022. When the resident escalated his complaint on 24 June 2022, the landlord stated on 13 July 2022 that it would respond by 1 August 2022. The landlord did not respond until 11 August 2022. These timeframes notably exceeded the time frames it gave the resident, and also exceeded the time frames set out in its own complaints policy, and in the Code (which states that an escalated complaint should be responded to within 20 working days).  No evidence of the landlord discussing with the resident an extension to the deadlines has been seen in this investigation. The delays were, accordingly, unreasonable, and added further to the landlord’s overall poor handling of the resident’s concerns and complaints.

Determination (decision)

17. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme, there was maladministration by the landlord in respect of the complaint.

Orders

18. In light of the inconvenience, frustration and distress caused to the resident, the length of time it took to resolve the repairs, the lack of communication, and its poor complaint handling, the landlord is ordered to pay the resident compensation of £400, within four weeks of this report.
19. The landlord must assess how the extensive delays occurred, why the resident was not appropriately updated, and why its complaint investigations neither identified, explained, nor remedied the repair failings. It must then explain how it intends to improve its services to avoid repeats of such failings going forward. The outcome of this assessment must be shared with the resident and this Service within six weeks of this report.

Recommendation

20. The complaints policy provided by the landlord for this investigation states that it has a 20 working day target for stage one complaint responses, and gives no dates for responses to escalated complaints. The policy is therefore not in accordance with the Code, which sets out 10 days and 20 days respectively. The landlord is advised to review its policies to ensure they comply with the Code.