Metropolitan Thames Valley Housing (202112817)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202112817

Metropolitan Housing Trust Limited

18 July 2022

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 concerns:
1. the conduct of the landlord’s staff in relation to the resident’s request to move to another property.
2. The associated formal complaint into this matter

Background

The resident is an assured tenant of the landlord, which is a housing association. The property is a flat in a communal building.
On 23 July 2021, the resident wrote to the landlord and requested to raise a complaint about the service she had received. She noted that she had requested several call backs which had not happened. The landlord replied on 28 July 2021, apologised and informed the resident that she would be contacted within two working days. In a further email, the resident described an incident where a staff member closed a door in her face during a conversation. However, a formal complaint was not opened regarding this incident.
The resident contacted this Service on 3 September 2021 to state her dissatisfaction that a complaint had not been opened. This Service passed on the resident’s concerns to the landlord, who opened a complaint and sent a stage one complaint response to the resident on 20 September 2021.
The landlord partially upheld the complaint on the grounds that it had not opened a complaint when it was originally raised by the resident in July 2021. The landlord disputed that it had not replied to her contact requests and provided a timeline of when it had contacted the resident. The landlord also informed resident that it would launch an internal investigation into the allegation she had made concerning the conduct of a staff member.
Following an escalation request from the resident, a stage two complaint response was provided on 4 November 2021. The landlord explained that it was satisfied with its position described at stage one as to the contact it had with the resident. The resident had highlighted issues with contacting a staff member who had their work phone turned off. The landlord explained that the staff member worked part time and that the phone would be turned off when they were not at work. The landlord also noted that while it had apologised to the resident for the delay in opening a complaint at stage one, it should have also offered financial redress for this. The landlord offered the resident £150 compensation.
The resident referred her complaint to the Ombudsman as she remained unhappy that the landlord’s staff did not return her emails or phone calls and took a long time to respond to her. She said staff were often rude to her, walking out on her, slamming the door in her face and putting the phone down during conversations.

Assessment and findings

Relevant policies and procedures

The landlord’s code of conduct states, in part, that it expects its staff members to:
1. Comply with the law, the terms of appointment and the landlord’ policies and procedures.
2. Not act or behave in a way which could reasonably be thought to bring the landlord’s reputation into disrepute.
3. Not act or behave in a way which inappropriately favours or discriminates against any individuals, groups or interests.
4. Use the right channels for handling service provision issues, and must not act outside of the landlord’s normal procedures.
The landlord operates a two-stage complaints process. When a complaint is made, it will be acknowledged within five working days and a stage one response sent within ten working days. If the complainant is dissatisfied with the response, they can request an escalation of the complaint. A review of the complaint will then be undertaken, and a stage two response sent within 20 working days. This will be the landlord’s final response to the complaint.
The complaints policy also states that the landlord will contact a complainant when it was not able to meet these timeframes and agree new response times.
The landlord’s compensation policy describes the three categories where it will consider making a payment to the resident. These are:
1. Mandatory payments. When the landlord is obligated to provide financial redress, such as under the Right to Repair scheme.
2. Quantifiable loss. When a complainant has accrued expenses as a result of the landlord failing to meet its obligations.
3. Discretionary payments. Considered in situations where the landlord has not provided a service it charges for, poor complaint handling, failure to meet target response times, or failure to attend an appointment.
The landlord’s payment guidance classifies its payments tariff as “Low” (up to £50), “Medium” (£51 to £160) and “High” (£161 to £350). Medium tariff payments are described as circumstances where a complainant has experienced a “longer period of delay [where a complainant] has had to chase several times.”.

Scope of investigation

During correspondence with this Service, the resident has described her dissatisfaction with how landlord staff members had responded to her requests to be rehoused.
Paragraph 39(o) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme states that we will not consider matters which “the Housing Ombudsman, or any other Ombudsman has already decided upon”. The resident previously brought a case to this Service relating to antisocial behaviour, a leak from the property’s ceiling, the condition of communal areas, and how the landlord handled her request to be rehoused. The Ombudsman’s decision on these matters was issued on 22 May 2022. Therefore, while the elements considered in the previous Housing Ombudsman case provide context to the current complaint, these issues will not be reconsidered in this investigation.

The conduct of the landlord’s staff

The landlord has an obligation to protect the confidentiality of its staff’s personal details. Therefore, the landlord would not be expected to tell the resident specific details regarding what, if any, disciplinary action it took relating to the member of staff following the conclusion of its investigation into their conduct. It is outside the Ombudsman’s role to investigate employment matters and therefore we would not assess or comment on any disciplinary action which the landlord may have taken regarding the staff member concerned. Rather, our investigation has focused on the actions taken by the landlord to investigate the resident’s concerns about staff conduct and put right any errors for the resident.
The landlord has provided this Service with the internal emails and call logs it used as evidence when it investigated the issues raised by the resident. These logs support the landlord’s position set out in the stage one complaint response that it had maintained regular contact with the resident and booked call backs when requested. It would have understandably been frustrating for the resident that staff members were not always available when she called. The landlord has explained that certain staff members involved in this case work part time and therefore their phones may have been switched off outside their working hours. This is a reasonable explanation by the landlord and as above, overall the evidence shows the landlord attempted to return missed calls from the resident. Therefore, there is no evidence of service failure in how the landlord handled this aspect of the complaint.
In regard to the resident’s complaint that staff members had put the phone down on her during conversations; the landlord informed the resident it had spoken to the team manager who had then reviewed their teams’ responses and found no evidence to support the allegation. It was appropriate of the landlord to ask the manager to review the correspondence with the resident to determine if any of its staff members had disconnected a call with the resident. However, without any supporting evidence the landlord would not be in a position to take any action against the staff member(s) concerned. The Ombudsman does not doubt the resident’s account of what happened, however as an impartial and independent arbitor of complaints we can only base our decisions on the available evidence. There is insufficient evidence to confirm what happened either way but there is evidence that the landlord investigated the resident’s concerns, which was appropriate and therefore it does not need to do anything further in this regard.
The landlord’s internal correspondence shows that acted on the resident’s comments by providing feedback to the line managers in its call centre and made particular reference to ensuring that when a call back is requested, the staff member named by the resident makes the call whenever possible. This action showed that it took on board the resident’s comments and looked to improve its services based on the comments and feedback given to it by the resident during the complaint process.
It was also appropriate for the landlord to launch an investigation into the allegation from the resident about its staff member closing a door in her face to ensure that the staff member had been acting in compliance with its code of conduct and that the resident had been treated fairly.
While the distress the incident with the staff member has caused to the resident is clear, the landlord has an obligation to protect the confidentiality of its staff’s personal details. Therefore, the landlord would not be expected to tell the resident specific details regarding what, if any, disciplinary action it took relating to the member of staff following the conclusion of its investigation into staff conduct.
However, the landlord would be expected to inform the resident of the findings of its investigation and, if the allegation was upheld, apologise to the resident if appropriate and consider awarding compensation. No evidence has been provided by either party which shows that the resident was informed of the result of the investigation during the time period considered in this complaint. This is a service failure by the landlord and a compensation payment to the resident is warranted in recognition of this delay and any additional distress this caused.
The Ombudsman’s own remedies guidance (which is available on our website). suggests a payment of £50 to £250 in cases of service failure by a landlord. As examples for when this level of payment should be considered, the guidance suggests “failure to meet service standards for actions and responses but where the failure had no significant impact”.
Therefore, it would be appropriate for the landlord to pay the resident £150 compensation for the delay in informing her of the result of its internal investigation into her allegation. The landlord should also write to the resident and inform her of the result of the investigation and whether, based on its findings, further compensation is warranted.

The landlord’s complaint handling

After receiving the resident’s request to open a complaint on 23 July 2021, the landlord acknowledged the request within five working days in line with its complaint policy. However, it was not until 3 September 2021, and following an intervention by this Service, that the complaint was opened; a period of 31 working days. In its complaint responses, the landlord apologised for the delay and awarded £150 compensation
Where there are admitted failings by a landlord, the Ombudsman’s role is to consider whether the redress offered by the landlord put things right and resolved the resident’s complaint satisfactorily in the circumstances. In considering this the Ombudsman takes into account whether the landlord’s offer of redress was in line with the Ombudsman’s Dispute Resolution Principles: be fair, put things right and learn from outcomes.
The landlord acted fairly in recognising it should have opened a complaint when first contacted by the resident. It put things right by apologising to the resident and awarding appropriate compensation. It looked to learn from its errors by ensuring the stage two complaint response was provided in line with its complaints policy. When the landlord became aware it would not be able to provide the stage two complaint response within its published timescales, it wrote to the resident on 25 October 2021 to inform her and extended the response time to 5 November 2021 in line with its complaints policy.
The £150 compensation was calculated by the landlord in line with its compensation policy at its medium tariff level in recognition of the delay in opening the complaint at stage one of its process and the inconvenience caused to the resident in having to seek the intervention of this Service before a complaint was opened. This level of redress is also line with this Ombudsman’s remedies guidance at the £50 to £250 scales as described above and is therefore reasonable in the circumstances.

Determination

In accordance with paragraph 54 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was service failure by the landlord in respect of the conduct of its staff in relation to the resident’s request to move to another property
In accordance with paragraph 55(b) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, the landlord made an offer of redress to the resident in respect its complaint handling which, in the Ombudsman’s opinion, satisfactorily resolves this element of the complaint.

Orders

For the service failure and reasons set out above, the landlord is ordered to pay to the resident £150.
This payment should be made within four weeks of the date of this report.
The landlord should update this Service when payment has been made.
This compensation award is in addition to the £150 compensation already awarded by the landlord in its complaint process.
It is further ordered that the landlord, if it has not done so already, write to the resident and inform her of its findings following its internal investigation into the conduct of the staff member and whether these finding support an additional compensation payment.