Lambeth Council (202323146)
REPORT
COMPLAINT 202323146
Lambeth Council
29 August 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
- The complaint is about the landlord’s response to the resident’s reports of a broken communal lift.
- This report has also assessed the landlord’s record keeping.
Background and summary of events
- The resident is a secure tenant of the landlord in a 1 bedroom flat. The flat is situated on the fifth floor of a block, which is served by a communal lift. The resident moved into the property in March 2001 and is recorded as having a physical disability.
- On 6 February 2023, the resident’s MP wrote to the landlord on her behalf. She stated that the lift in the resident’s building was not “disability-friendly”, the buttons were too high and the door shut too quickly. She added that the lift was 60 years old, and was “constantly breaking down”. The landlord responded on 20 February 2023 and stated that the resident did not have a live housing application and should therefore apply for alternative housing and provide medical information for a medical assessment to be carried out. It added that, once the resident had a bidding reference, she could bid on 1 bedroom properties and would also be able to register for a mutual exchange.
- On 26 July 2023 the resident contacted the landlord to raise a stage 1 complaint. She stated that:
- The lift was “constantly breaking down” and had broken down twice in the previous 2 weeks.
- The fire brigade had been called on numerous occasions to assist residents.
- Despite a 4 hour timescale, it was not unusual for a repair to remain outstanding “for days on end”.
- She was disabled and could not walk up or down 6 flights of stairs. When the lift broke down, she was trapped inside her home and unable to leave the block.
- She was happy where she lived and did not want to move.
- She was a mobility scooter user and the lift was not “disabled friendly”. This was due its width and the height of the buttons, and the inability to turn a wheelchair or scooter around once inside.
- The landlord issued its stage 1 response on 28 July 2023. It stated that:
- Its lift contractor attended the property twice on 18 July 2023.
- On the first visit, the engineer rectified the issue and put the lift back into service.
- Following reports of a second breakdown, the contractor attended again later that day. The engineer carried out the necessary checks, tested the lift and ensured it was operational before leaving.
- There were plans to replace the lift within the landlord’s 5 year refurbishment programme, which was in its second year.
- It was sorry for any frustration and inconvenience caused during her repair request and partially upheld her complaint.
- The resident responded to the landlord on 30 July 2023 and stated that:
- She wished to escalate her complaint.
- The lift breakdowns were happening more often and she had “lost count” of the number of times she had been unable to leave her flat because of this.
- Despite contacting the landlord and requesting assistance, such as asking to be put in a hotel overnight, it had rejected her requests.
- With the alarm in the lift only being heard on the ground floor, it was not unusual for residents “to be stuck in the lift for an hour”.
- She wanted a contingency plan, with clear instructions for vulnerable residents on what they should do in the event of lift breakdown and who to contact regarding access to their home.
- She wanted the landlord to give greater priority to the installation a new lift in her building.
- The landlord acknowledged the resident’s escalation request on 4 August 2023 and issued its stage 2 response on 8 September 2023. It stated that:
- It had asked her neighbourhood housing officer to contact her regarding her request for a contingency plan.
- It would be conducting a “vulnerability survey” with her to understand how best it could support her.
- It agreed that the lift was “extremely old” and needed “some attention”. The matter had been passed onto its capital works team who had graded the lift renewal as a “priority 2 status”.
- It only had a limited budget each year to carry out the refurbishment of lifts and did this in priority order.
- During the 2023/24 financial year, it planned to refurbish lifts designated as priority 1. Those designated as priority 2 would be picked up as part of its 2024/25 works. If additional funds became available during the year, there was the possibility of an earlier replacement.
- It acknowledged that her lift needed to be upgraded sooner but there was a limited budget and it had to address other works in order of greatest priority.
- It was sorry for any inconvenience and upset caused and apologised for the delay in providing its response.
- The resident contacted the landlord on 18 and 19 August 2023 to say that she had once again been unable to use the lift. She said that operatives had left a notice informing residents it was out of service, and that the estimated date of repair was 28 August 2023. The resident added that it looked like “another weekend of lock-in” for her. She said that she had an appointment the following week, a prescription to collect and was disappointed that she could not go to a concert because the lift was out of service.
- On 6 October 2023, the resident approached the Ombudsman for assistance. She stated that:
- The lift in her building had broken down “literally every month in the past 4 years”.
- She said she was “mobility impaired” and was unable to leave her home when the lift broke.
- She wanted to be compensated for a concert she could not attend because she was unable to leave the building.
- She wanted emergency numbers so she could get urgent assistance in case of a breakdown.
- The landlord should replace the lift in her building as a priority and make it “suitable for disabled people”.
- Every time she entered the lift she was in fear of it breaking down.
- The resident wrote again to the Service on 15 August 2024 and stated that the lift continued to break down and the door often opened up while the lift was “3 inches lower than it should be”. This made it very difficult for her to exit with her mobility scooter. She confirmed she had still not heard anything back from the landlord regarding a contingency plan.
Assessment and findings
Legal and policy framework
- The landlord’s repairs manual states that it is responsible for carrying out repairs and maintenance to parts of the external fabric of its housing blocks and estates. This includes communal equipment and areas residents share with neighbours like lifts and door entry systems.
- The landlord’s estates and neighbourhood management policy says the landlord will ensure lifts are safe and well maintained. Furthermore, the landlord’s repairs policy states that emergency repairs will be attended to within 2 to 24 hours. This includes lift breakdowns The landlord’s responsibility for the lift is therefore not disputed.
- The landlord has a lift servicing and testing procedure, which complies with the lifting operations and lifting equipment regulations 1998. This requires that passenger lists are “thoroughly examined by a competent person at least every 6 months”. The procedure states that the landlord will take specific account of any vulnerability or health and safety requirements during prioritisation for works. It adds that all lifts receive a service test once per calendar month.
- The landlord’s compensation policy states that it should consider applying a remedy when, after investigating a complaint, it finds that a failure in service has occurred that has had an adverse effect on the resident. The policy does not specify any amounts of discretionary compensation it will pay
- The landlord’s complaints policy sets out a 2 stage formal complaints process. The first stage is referred to as “local resolution”, while stage 2 is referred to as the “final review”. At both stages, the landlord logs the complaint and sends an acknowledgement within 5 working days. It aims to issue stage 1 responses within 10 working days and stage 2 responses within 20 working days. If an extension is needed, the landlord will contact the resident to explain why and provide a revised timescale.
Scope of investigation
- The resident has raised concerns to the Ombudsman about various outstanding repairs to her property, including a kitchen installation. As these issues did not from part of the formal complaint to the landlord under consideration, this is not something that the Service can investigate at this stage. This is because the landlord needs to be provided with the opportunity to investigate and respond to these reports. The records show the resident has already raised these matters as part of a separate complaint. Once she has received the landlord’s final response, she may then approach the Ombudsman and raise a new case if she remains dissatisfied.
Reports of a broken communal lift
- The Ombudsman wishes to acknowledge that the resident has experienced a great deal of distress and inconvenience over a long period of time, while living in a building with a communal lift that regularly broke down. We recognise how anxious she must have felt not knowing whether she could leave her property and whether the lift would be working, especially when the resident was living with a disability.
- The landlord has not provided contemporaneous evidence of correspondence it had with the resident about the lift. It is unclear whether it has not kept a record or if it had done so but failed to provide it for the purposes of this investigation. Regardless, this is evidence of poor record keeping.
- Furthermore, the landlord has not provided any lift repair or maintenance records for 2023, which was when the resident raised her complaint. It was therefore unclear how often the lift broke down that year and whether the landlord had attended within 24 hours in each case, in line with its repairs policy. Its complaint response cited two breakdowns, which occurred on 18 July 2023 and confirmed these had both been repaired on the same day. This was appropriate. The landlord has also told us that it services the lift once a month, and that it also carried out annual testing and twice yearly insurance inspections. It has not provided copies of monthly or annual service reports. The landlord should have ensured copies of these records were appropriately stored and available so that it could evidence that these actions had been completed appropriately. It should also have been able to provide the Ombudsman with a copy of the records. That it was unable to do so is further indicative of poor record keeping.
- The landlord has provided a repair log from February to June 2024, which shows that the lift broke down around 17 times within the 5 month period. In some instances, the records showed it broke down twice in one day. On most of those occasions, the landlord had repaired the fault within 24 hours, which was appropriate. However, there is evidence the lift had remained out of service for long periods of time. For example, the resident provided a photograph of a sign that the landlord had put on the lift on 18 August 2023 informing residents the lift was not working. It stated that the estimated repair date was 28 August 2023. As the landlord has not provided repair records for this period, it is unclear when the lift was put back into service on this occasion. However, this suggests the resident would not have been able to leave her property for a number of days. Furthermore, the repair logs the landlord had provided shows the lift was also out of service for 13 days, between 24 May to 5 June 2024.
- The Ombudsman’s spotlight report on attitudes, respect and rights, published in January 2024 states that all residents have the right to expect their landlord to act within the requirements of the Equality Act, Care Act and Human Rights Act. When considering its approach to vulnerabilities and individual circumstances, meeting legal requirements should be the baseline, not the aspiration. Landlords should consider creative, person-centred and bespoke responses to the individual needs of their residents.
- It is acknowledged that some delays to repairs are unavoidable in cases where the landlord has to wait for parts to become available. It has been stated that the lift was “very old”, which may have made some parts harder to source. In these cases, some delays would be out of the landlord’s control. However, the resident is vulnerable, has a physical disability and lives on the fifth floor in a high-rise block. She had reported to the landlord on a number of occasions that she was unable to leave her property without the use of the lift, which prevented her from to engaging in normal day to day activities.
- There is no evidence the landlord considered the impact of the broken lift on her. It told the Service that it had completed a risk assessment but that this was “generic”, “for the building”, and was “not tailored for individuals”. It has not provided a copy of this risk assessment. However, based on the description provided, it does not appear that the assessment was appropriate in any event. The landlord has provided no records to show it had contacted the resident at any point to ask whether she needed any support for when the lift was out of action, or considered whether reasonable adjustments were appropriate. She told the landlord in her complaint that she was unable to carry out daily tasks like going shopping and that she had missed appointments due to the broken lift. This Service would have expected the landlord to check on the wellbeing of its residents while the lift was out of order for any prolonged periods, especially those who were vulnerable.
- The records show that the landlord visited the resident on 7 November 2023 to carry out a vulnerability assessment. Although it has provided a copy of the completed assessment form, it has not given evidence that it had provided any advice or support to the resident regarding her use of the lift. However, it is noted that the assessment found the resident was unable to self-evacuate when instructed to do so. In response to this, the landlord acted appropriately by facilitating the completion of a personal emergency evacuation plan (PEEP) for her as a fire safety precaution.
- As part of her escalation request, the records show that the resident asked the landlord to put together a contingency plan for her and other disabled residents in the block for when the lift broke down. In its stage 2 response, the landlord said that it had asked her neighbourhood housing officer to contact her regarding her request for a contingency plan. The resident confirmed to the Service on 15 August 2024 that the landlord had still not contacted her to discuss a plan. It should not have been up to the resident to prompt the landlord to put a plan in place. As the landlord had a duty of care towards its vulnerable residents, it should have considered putting a plan together at an early stage, when it was aware the lift was breaking down on a regular basis.
- The landlord should have done everything it could to ensure the resident was not put to an unfair disadvantage due to her vulnerabilities. It should have also taken care to ensure that reasonable adjustments were considered in cases where she was unable to leave or enter her property due to the broken lift. That the landlord has been unable to demonstrate that it gave reasonable consideration to whether it was complying with its obligations toward a vulnerable resident was a failing. The Ombudsman will make an order that the landlord contacts the resident to discuss putting a contingency plan together for the vulnerable residents in her building in the case of further lift breakdowns.
- In its stage 2 response, the landlord told the resident that the replacement of her communal lift was on its capital works programme for the 2024/25 financial year. In a lift repair record dated 14 February 2024, the operative had commented that all equipment required updating as it did not meet safe working standards. It is unclear whether the landlord carried out any safety inspections of the lift following this. It is acknowledged that budgetary constraints would mean it may not be able to replace equipment like lifts as quickly as it would like. However, given the frequency of lift breakdowns and the fact it was recorded that the equipment no longer met safety standards, it would have been reasonable for the landlord to have explored whether it was possible to expedite the works. That it did not do so was a failing.
- Furthermore, there is no evidence the landlord provided any updates to the resident regarding any forthcoming plans to start the work to upgrade the lift. The resident confirmed to the Service that she had heard nothing more about the refurbishment programme. Given the landlord had told her it would replace the lift during the 2024/25 financial year, it would have been reasonable for it to have provided her with an update after April 2024. The failure to manage her expectations and the lack of communication would have caused her uncertainty about whether the landlord would meet the commitment it had made. It would have also unnecessarily worsened her anxiety about having to continue to live in a property she could not leave or enter due to a broken lift. The Ombudsman will make an order that the landlord provides the resident with an update on when the lift replacement works are estimated to start or, if they have been postponed, to give her an explanation why.
- The resident told the service on 15 August 2024 that she did not want to move and that she was happy in her current property. She said that the landlord had made her 2 direct offers of alternative accommodation but that these were not suitable for her needs. The landlord acted appropriately in trying to find another property for the resident while it was waiting for the lift to be replaced. It is also noted that the resident preferred to remain in her current property, and the reasons for this are understood. It should not be necessary for the resident to move because of problems with the lift.
- It is evident that, on the whole, the landlord met its obligation to repair the lift within its emergency repair timescale. However, it failed to take reasonable account of her vulnerabilities or to demonstrate that it adequately communicated with her about when the lift would be replaced. Furthermore, it failed to follow up on actions it said it would take, such as developing a contingency plan in case of lift breakdowns. These failings and the cumulative impact they would have had on the resident in terms of distress and inconvenience amounts to maladministration.
Record keeping
- The landlord’s poor record keeping has been referred to throughout this report. The Ombudsman’s spotlight report on complaints about repairs, published in March 2019, states that “it is vital landlords keep clear, accurate and easily accessible records to provide an audit trail. The landlord and its contractors should keep comprehensive records of residents’ reports of outstanding repairs and their responses, including details of appointments, any pre- and post-inspections, surveyors’ reports, work carried out and completion date”’. In addition, the Ombudsman’s latest spotlight report on Knowledge and Information Management states that, “the failings to create and record information accurately results in landlords not taking appropriate and timely action, missing opportunities to identify that actions were wrong or inadequate, and contributing to inadequate communication and redress”.
- The evidence that the landlord provided in response to our initial request for information, was lacking in detail. Clear record keeping and management is a core function of a repairs service, as this assists the landlord in fulfilling its repair obligations. Accurate and complete records ensure the landlord has a good understanding of the progress of ongoing repairs at any given time to be able to provide updates to residents. Records also enable outstanding repairs to be monitored and provide an audit trail of actions, including any delays that were outside of its control. Effective record keeping means landlords are also able to carry out effective investigations when things go wrong.
- The evidence shows it took the landlord 30 working days to respond to the resident’s stage 2 complaint. The delay was not excessive. However, the landlord has provided no records showing whether it contacted the resident to let her know its response would be delayed, explain the reason for the delay, or to agree a revised timescale.
- Furthermore, the landlord has not provided copies of any of its monthly or bi-annual service inspection reports. The lift repair logs it made available did not relate to the period of the complaint but to several months following conclusion of the complaints process. As a result, the Ombudsman was unable to ascertain how many breakdowns had occurred in 2023, and whether these had been repaired within the correct timescale. Contemporaneous records of internal correspondence or contact between the landlord and its contractors was not made available, and the landlord provided no evidence of contract monitoring or correspondence with its contractor. The evidence of poor record keeping would have contributed to the landlord’s poor communication with the resident and its lack of adequate support. It would have also contributed to its failure to follow up on the actions it had said it would take in its complaint responses. The Ombudsman has taken this into account when reaching the overall finding that there was maladministration in this case.
- The Ombudsman’s special report on the landlord dated 1 February 2022 identified that poor record keeping hampered its ability to respond in a meaningful way to complaints. The Ombudsman proposed that the landlord undertake a number of reviews, which included ensuring accurate and accessible records were kept and maintained, both of works raised and completed, and of resident contact. Since the special report was published, the Ombudsman published its spotlight report on Knowledge and Information Management (KIM) in May 2023.
- We encourage landlords to self-assess against the Ombudsman’s spotlight reports following publication. The evidence gathered during this investigation shows the landlord’s practice was not in line with that recommended in the spotlight report. We encourage the landlord to consider the findings and recommendations of our spotlight report unless the landlord can provide evidence it has self-assessed already.
Determination (decision)
- In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was maladministration in the landlord’s response to the resident’s reports of a broken communal lift.
- In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was maladministration in the landlord’s record keeping.
Orders
- Within 4 weeks of the date of this report the landlord must:
- Pay the resident compensation of £500, calculated as follows:
- £500 in recognition of the its failure to properly consider the resident’s vulnerabilities and the resulting distress and inconvenience caused;
- Provide the resident with an apology from a senior manager in line with the Ombudsman’s apologies guidance.
- Contact the resident to discuss putting a contingency plan together for her and other vulnerable residents in her building in the case of further lift breakdowns.
- Provide the resident with an update on when the lift replacement works are estimated to start or, if they have been postponed, to give her an explanation why.
- Pay the resident compensation of £500, calculated as follows:
- In accordance with paragraph 54.g of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, the landlord is to provide the Ombudsman with a review conducted by a senior manager. The landlord is to confirm compliance with these orders to the Ombudsman within 10 weeks of the date of this report. The review should include as a minimum (but is not limited to):
- An exploration of why the failings identified by this investigation occurred and:
- How the landlord failed to consider the resident’s particular needs;
- How the landlord could more effectively prioritise vulnerable residents, paying particular attention to any safety concerns if repairs are delayed;
- Whether the formulation of a policy/procedure is required that covers responding to residents’ vulnerabilities.
- An exploration of why the failings identified by this investigation occurred and: