Nottingham City Council (202318700)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202318700

Nottingham City Council

30 April 2025

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 reports of a leak.
   2. Handling of the formal complaint.

Background

2. The resident is the secure tenant of the property which is owned by the council landlord. She has lived there for more than 20 years.
3. On 8 July 2023 the resident reported that there was a leak from the bathroom ceiling and water was pouring through the light fitting. The landlord’s contractor attended that day and disconnected the bathroom electricity. They said the problem appeared to be a leak from the roof which should be dealt with quickly.
4. The resident complained about the landlord’s response on 10 July 2023. She said it had been unacceptable and the incident had caused an injury to her child’s eye when debris fell into it on 9 July 2023. She said the landlord’s communication around the repair had been very poor.
5. In the landlord’s stage 1 response of 24 July 2023 it said:
   1. It was aware of a problem with its system for notifying residents of appointments by text which meant the text did not say what the appointment was for. While it could not change this at present, it would do so as soon as possible.
   2. It had resolved the emergency on 8 July 2023 so it would carry out the remaining works, such as repairing the roof, as standard repairs as soon as possible.
   3. It accepted that a call handler had not handled a call with the resident “to the required standard”, so it partially upheld the complaint.
6. The resident escalated the complaint on 27 July 2023, saying the landlord had failed to correctly set out the facts. She repeated that it had communicated poorly and said it should not reinstate the electricity before repairing the roof. She said the ceiling wobbled when touched. She repeated that, overall, the landlord’s response had been inadequate.
7. In the landlord’s stage 2 response of 24 August 2023 it said:
   1. It had written to the resident on 24 July 2023 to say it had repaired the roof and restored the electrics in the bathroom. The resident had confirmed this in an email of 1 August 2023.
   2. It accepted that its systems were not ideal and said it was in the middle of a review of the repairs service.
   3. The resident had made some valid points about the way it sequenced repairs and communicated with customers. The review would focus on communications with customers and internally.
   4. It would invest in new IT platforms which would improve communications. This would mean it would be able to book a series of repairs in sequence in future.
   5. A call handler had provided poor service.
   6. It offered £100 compensation and apologised for its failures of service.
8. In her referral to us the resident said she had waited too long for repairs to the roof and her electrics. She repeated her concerns about communication and added that she believed the landlord had tried to divert her complaint through a pre-complaints system. She wanted better communication, particularly before appointments, for herself and other residents in future.

Assessment and findings

Response to the resident’s reports of a leak

9. The landlord’s repairs policy says it will treat leaks as emergency repairs. It aims to attend emergency appointments within 4 hours and other routine appointments within 30 working days. The available records show that the landlord’s contractor attended on 8 July 2023 within 4 hours and treated the emergency element of the repairs by disconnecting the electricity in the bathroom. It then repaired the roof before 18 July 2023 and reconnected the electrics on 18 July 2023. As the repair to the roof was a non-emergency repair, this was within the 30-working day timeframe. This was, therefore, a good response to the resident’s reports.
10. The resident says that debris fell from the bathroom ceiling on 9 July 2023 and her child had to go to the local accident and emergency department (A&E) as a result. We cannot say whether a resident’s injury was caused by a landlord’s actions or inactions. She may wish to seek legal advice about this, as a personal injury claim may be a more appropriate way of dealing with this.
11. The resident said that, over the next few days, communication was poor. She received a text notification which informed her of an appointment but not what it was for. The landlord has explained that, while it accepts that it would be better if texts were more informative, it does not currently have the capacity to do this. It has explained that it is holding a review and expects to invest in new IT which will improve its communications and planning.
12. This is a budgeting issue. The landlord has the matter under consideration but is not able to carry out all improvements at once. Providers of social housing are encouraged to make the most effective use of their limited resources and this will often mean that improvements need to be carefully considered and prioritised. There is no maladministration in relying on ageing IT due to budgetary constraints, and the landlord has demonstrated that it is mindful of the need to update this in due course.
13. The resident also says that, on 11 July 2023, contractors attended without notice in an unmarked van as she was going out. She had doubts about who they were and was not able to meet them. It would have been preferable if the landlord had given the resident more notice, but it seems it was trying to get works done quickly. It was not its fault that the resident was going out and we accept that communication is not always possible.
14. It is to be hoped that the new IT system may help prevent recurrences of this problem in future. We have also recommended that the landlord should examine the possibility of providing contractors with identification to prevent similar issues arising.
15. The resident said in her original complaint that the landlord told her it intended to carry out work to fix the roof in November 2023. She was, therefore, understandably concerned that the works to reconnect the bathroom electrics, scheduled for 18 July 2023, might put her family at risk if the electrics got wet again. However, the evidence shows that this was not, in fact, the case.
16. The landlord repaired the roof prior to reconnecting the electrics on 18 July 2023. The resident is concerned that the contractors were only on the roof for 10 minutes and so could not have properly repaired it. However, she accepts that the leak has stopped. While the landlord communicated poorly about the works, it has explained why and what it intends to do to solve the problem. The landlord has also accepted that the resident received poor service from a call handler. It was appropriate that, at stage 2, it offered compensation for its communication errors.
17. In identifying whether there has been maladministration, we consider both the events which initially prompted a complaint and the landlord’s response to those events. The extent to which a landlord has recognised and addressed any shortcomings and the appropriateness of any steps taken to offer redress are therefore as relevant as the original mistake or service failure. We will not make a finding of maladministration where the landlord has fully acknowledged any failings and taken reasonable steps to resolve them.
18. The landlord’s compensation policy sets out 3 categories of awards for discretionary compensation: “low impact”, “medium impact” and “high impact”. It says a low-impact failure may be one which occurs once and has no long-lasting ill effects. This case fits into the “low impact” category. The policy does not set out any guidance for the level of awards for each category but £100 for a “low impact” failure is considered appropriate and in line with our own guidance on remedies.
19. Considering the full circumstances of the case, and in consultation with our remedies guidance, the landlord’s actions and offer of financial redress are considered reasonable. Therefore, the landlord has offered reasonable redress to the resident for its handling of the leak. A recommendation is made for the landlord to pay the resident the £100 compensation, if not done so already. The reasonable redress finding is made on the basis of this sum being paid, as it recognised genuine elements of service failure by the landlord.

Complaint handling

20. The resident complained 2 days after the leak occurred and before it had been repaired, so the events were still unfolding. She says the landlord suggested that she should not complain formally, as this might delay the response to her concerns, but should, instead, complain informally.
21. The landlord said, in its stage 1 response, that it had treated the resident’s initial contacts as a service request rather than a complaint. Given how soon after the initial leak she complained this may explain what the landlord said to her. We have seen no evidence of the landlord trying to stop the resident complaining.
22. Our current Complaint Handling Code (the Code) says that landlords must not have “extra named stages (such as “stage 0” or “informal complaint”) as this causes unnecessary confusion”. However, this version of the Code was not in place at the time of these events and so, while this was not best practice, it was not a service failure.
23. In any event, whether the landlord asked the resident to complain informally or not, it provided a stage 1 response on 24 August 2023, 10 working days after the complaint. Its complaint policy and the Code say that 10 working days is the deadline, so this was a timely response.
24. The resident escalated her complaint on 27 July 2023 and the landlord responded on 17 August 2023, 15 working days later. The landlord’s complaints policy said it had to provide the response within 20 working days. This was, therefore, again a timely complaint response.
25. The resident says that both complaint stages contained errors in their summaries of events. For example, the landlord had stated in its stage 1 summary that her child’s eye had been injured by falling debris, but had not included the fact they had to go to A&E. We would not expect such a summary to contain every detail and, while the resident was understandably upset by the visit to A&E, it was not pertinent to the issue of the repairs. The other details omitted from summaries also did not attempt to mislead or avoid blame. Further, the landlord did, at the resident’s request, change its summary of events in its stage 2 response. This was an example of responsive complaint handling.
26. It is true that the landlord stated in its stage 1 response of 24 July 2023 that it still needed to repair the roof. It then stated at stage 2 that it had, in fact, completed those works by 18 July 2023. It might have been preferable if it had apologised for this confusion but this was not an error which would justify a finding of service failure. Overall, there was no maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the formal complaint.

Determination

27. In accordance with paragraph 53.b of the Scheme, the landlord has offered reasonable redress for its handling of the resident’s reports of a leak.
28. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme, there was no maladministration in the landlord’s complaint handling.

Recommendations

29. The landlord is recommended to:
    1. Consider issuing ID to its contractors.
    2. Pay the resident the £100 it previously offered if it has not already done so. This sum compensated the resident for elements of poor service and the finding of reasonable redress is made on that basis.