London Borough of Camden Council (202328620)

Decision
Case ID	202328620
Decision type	Investigation
Landlord	London Borough of Camden Council
Landlord type	Local Authority / ALMO or TMO
Occupancy	Leaseholder
Date	20 November 2025

Background

The resident raised issues with the landlord about the heating element of service charges from April 2023.

What the complaint is about

The complaint is about the landlord’s response to:
1. The resident’s questions about its energy procurement process.
2. Complaint handling.

Our decision (determination)

We have found that:
1. There were service failings in the landlord’s response to the resident’s questions about its energy procurement process.
2. There were service failings in the landlord’s handling of the complaint.

We have made orders for the landlord to put things right.

Summary of reasons

The landlord’s response to the resident’s questions about its energy procurement process.

The landlord failed to respond to all questions asked by the resident in an accessible and user-friendly manner.

The complaint handling

The landlord failed to provide its stage 1 response within policy timescales and failed to put things right.

Putting things right

Where we find service failure, maladministration or severe maladministration we can make orders for the landlord to put things right. We have the discretion to make recommendations in all other cases within our jurisdiction.

Orders

Landlords must comply with our orders in the manner and timescales we specify. The landlord must provide documentary evidence of compliance with our orders by the due date set.

Order	What the landlord must do	Due date
1	Apology order The landlord must apologise in writing to the resident for the failures identified in this report. The landlord must ensure: The apology is specific to the failures identified in this decision, meaningful and empathetic. It has due regard to our apologies guidance.	No later than 18 December 2025
2	Compensation order The landlord must pay the resident £100 to recognise the time and trouble the resident experienced from: The delay in responding to the complaint at stage 1. The failure to respond to the resident’s questions fully in an accessible manner. This must be paid directly to the resident by the due date. The landlord must provide documentary evidence of payment by the due date.	No later than 18 December 2025
3	Action order The landlord must contact the resident to give him the opportunity to discuss any further questions he may have about the energy procurement decision. It must write to both the resident and us to confirm the matters discussed and any actions agreed.	No later than 18 December 2025

Our investigation

The complaint procedure

Date	What happened
26 July 2023	The resident complained to the landlord as he said he had raised issues about the estimated service charges from April 2023 which were unanswered. His questions had included: What procurement choices the landlord had made and whether it explored the possibility of purchasing energy for less than 12 months. Whether external expert advice was available to the team making the purchase decision. What had happened with the procurement in Autumn 2023. The influence that the landlord retained over choices of its gas contract.
1 August 2023	The landlord provided a response to the resident (this was not the stage 1 complaint response). It said: The contract with the energy buying organisation was for 4 years from October 2020. The contract was procurement only opposed to a fully managed contract, which would cost more. The contracted energy buying organisation used expertise in assessing the market to procure the energy in the period preceding the start of each contracted year.
4 September 2023	The landlord provided its stage 1 response and said it had given a detailed response to the resident’s questions on 1 August 2023. The landlord said it had nothing further to add and did not uphold the complaint.
1 October 2023	The resident requested an escalation as he felt there had been an inadequate investigation of his complaint and asked for the stage 2 complaint to also consider the time that the landlord had taken to respond to his complaint.
11 October 2023	The landlord provided its stage 2 response and said that it did not uphold the complaint as it had acted in accordance with policy and process.
17 November 2023	The resident referred his complaint to the Ombudsman and said that he wanted to know how the landlord had bought one year’s gas supply at the point of peak gas prices in Autumn 2022. He said he had received fragmentary responses at long intervals, and no details of the decision-making.

What we found and why

The circumstances of this complaint are well known by the parties involved, so it is not necessary to detail everything that’s happened or comment on all the information we’ve reviewed. We’ve only included the key information that forms the basis of our decision of whether the landlord is responsible for maladministration.

Complaint	The resident’s questions about its energy procurement process
Finding	Service failure

The resident contacted the landlord on 2 April 2023, after receiving the estimated service charges in February 2023. The resident said that the estimates represented a 383% increase compared to the actual figures from the previous year. The resident asked multiple questions about the landlord’s decision to purchase the energy.
On 5 May 2023, the landlord responded and explained how it calculated the estimated service charges and included an external link to its website. This explained in detail how the landlord had applied for a Qualifying Long-Term Arrangement (QLTA) with the energy buying organisation which the First Tier Tribunal approved on 17 February 2023. The landlord sent a copy of the Notice of Intention to the resident on 4 November 2022. The letter outlined the landlord’s proposal to enter into long-term agreements for the supply of electricity and gas. It also included instructions for accessing the linked documents online and requesting a printed copy.
Although the landlord has no specific policy that outlines response times for enquiries, the landlord responded within a reasonable timeframe given the volume of information the resident requested. While the landlord did share information which provided answers, the format was not user-friendly. Using external links to address concerns was unreasonable, especially since one of the linked documents exceeded 380 pages. The landlord could have made the relevant information easier to find if it were available via the link by referring to the sections that answered the resident’s questions.
On 8 June 2023, the resident contacted the landlord again to ask for clarification and further questions. The landlord responded to the query on 1 August 2023 and failed to respond to questions about:
1. Whether the landlord had explored the possibility of purchasing for less than 12 months through any legally available route.
2. What had happened with the procurement in Autumn 2023.
3. The influence the landlord retained over choices of energy contract.
This was a failure which the landlord did not remedy in the landlord’s stage 1 complaint response, as it said it had nothing further to add from the response provided on 1 August 2023. In the stage 2 response, the landlord missed a further opportunity to clarify its response. It simply repeated the details from the 1 August 2023 response and did not uphold the complaint.
Although the landlord explained that it had entered a contract with the energy buying organisation to procure energy until 2024, it did not offer the resident a direct answer to some of the questions he had raised. The landlord could have made the information more accessible or user-friendly, rather than relying solely on the external link. This impacted the resident as he had to make subsequent requests for information as he would have had to sift through a significant amount of information to find his answers. The resident remains dissatisfied with the response provided by the landlord. The landlord could have improved its response by directly addressing the resident and offering the information that he asked for.
We have therefore found that there was a service failure in the landlord’s response, and an award of compensation has been made in recognition of the time and trouble the resident experienced trying to receive an accessible response from the landlord.

Complaint	Complaint Handling
Finding	Service failure

The resident submitted his complaint on 26 July 2023 which the landlord acknowledged the same day. The landlord’s complaint policy says that acknowledgements should be provided at all stages of complaint within 2 working days. Therefore, this response was in timeframe.
The landlord issued the stage 1 response on 4 September 2023. This delay was a failure as the landlord’s complaint policy said that it would respond to stage 1 complaints within 10 working days. The landlord did try to manage the resident’s expectation by writing to him in August to explain that the matter was complex, although it never requested an extension of time to complete the investigation. The tone of this contact was poor and did not demonstrate that it wanted to resolve the complaint. The landlord failed to meet the complaint policy timeframe and responded to the complaint in 29 working days.
On 1 October 2023, the resident requested an escalation to stage 2, raising concerns about the delayed stage 1 response. The landlord did not provide an acknowledgement, which was a failure to meet the complaint policy timeframe for acknowledgments, The landlord provided the stage 2 response on 11 October 2023, which met the required timeframe. However, the response failed to acknowledge the earlier delay in stage 1 and did not include an apology. This was a failure, as the landlord did not address or apologise for the delay in completing the initial review. As a result, the resident had to contact the landlord throughout the process as it provided no updates, meaning he was unable to escalate his concerns in a timely manner.
Overall, there was service failure, and an award of compensation has been made in recognition of the time and trouble the resident experienced because of the delays experienced.

Learning

Communication

Although the landlord provided responses to the resident’s questions, the format of the responses was not user friendly. The landlord could have summarised the responses to the questions clearer to improve customer service. The landlord should ensure staff consider whether responses can be better summarised alongside providing links to additional information to aid customer service.