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Reading Borough Council (202332518)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202332518

Reading Borough Council

30 September 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 handling of the resident’s:
    1. concerns about a staff member’s conduct
    2. request for her tenancy agreement
    3. reports of antisocial behaviour (ASB)
    4. report of window repairs
    5. request for a new front door
    6. report the landlord was arranging repair visits without telling her
  2. We have also investigated the landlord’s handling of the resident’s complaint.

Background

  1. The resident is a secure tenant of the landlord, a local council. She lives in a 2-bedroom semi-detached house. The landlord uses a management group to communicate, maintain and refurbish the resident’s property.
  2. In October 2023 the resident raised concerns about the landlord’s staff member. Following this, on 14 November 2023 the resident raised a formal complaint. She said, among other things, the landlord had:
    1. done nothing about her neighbour being racist and throwing bags of dog faeces in her garden
    2. failed to provide her tenancy agreement which was requested 3 weeks prior
    3. caused her distress because of a staff members action
    4. left her windows unfixed, refused a request for a new front door, and failed to tell her about repair appointments
  3. The landlord responded on 20 November 2023 at stage 1 of its complaint process. It said:
    1. the resident had not informed it about the potential ASB with her neighbour
    2. the tenancy agreement had been made available for collection at its office, but was delivered by hand to the resident after she did not collect it
    3. the staff member was trying to help the resident, but it needed more information from the resident to investigate the staff member’s conduct further
    4. it had been trying to arrange repairs to the windows without success, but was happy to attend at the resident’s convenience
    5. it could look at the resident’s request for a new front door and asked the resident to contact them to arrange an inspection at her convenience
    6. the repair visits were pre-arranged, and it would be happy to visit the resident
  4. The resident asked to escalate her complaint on 20 December 2023 as she was unhappy with the response provided and the actions since the stage 1 response. The landlord responded at stage 2 of its complaint process on 7 May 2024, it said:
    1. it had provided a ‘Supported Housing Officer’ to mediate between the resident and itself
    2. it had found it difficult to discuss the complaint and gain clarity on some of the issues raised
    3. it had tried to visit the resident on 1 May 2024 to discuss any outstanding concerns, but she had refused this visit
    4. the resident could meet with the Supported Housing Officer to resolve any outstanding issues
    5. in relation to repairs, the resident had a disrepair case in progress and solicitor’s were dealing with this
    6. the complaint was not upheld, but it would be willing to review the matter if the resident supplied additional information to support her complaint
  5. The resident first contacted us about this case in December 2023. In June 2024 she confirmed that she would like to take the case forward to investigation following receipt of the stage 2 complaint response. To resolve the case the resident wanted the landlord to resolve the ASB and make a payment of compensation.
  6. We have seen that in June 2025 the landlord issued court proceedings relating to outstanding repairs and access issues. This court case has been adjourned until November 2025.

Jurisdiction

  1. When a complaint is brought to us, we must review all the circumstances of the case as there may be reasons why a complaint will not be investigated. After carefully looking at the evidence, we have decided that the following 3 complaints are not within our jurisdiction to investigate under paragraph 41.c.
    1. report of window repairs
    2. request for a new front door
    3. report the landlord was arranging repair visits without telling her
  2. Paragraph 41.c. of the Scheme says that the Ombudsman cannot look at complaints which, “concern matters that are the subject of court proceedings”. Because there are current court proceedings about outstanding repairs and access issues, the 3 complaints above are outside of our jurisdiction and will not be reviewed further.

Assessment and findings

Scope of Investigation

  1. We understand that there is a long history of the resident reporting issues. However, this investigation has focussed on the landlord’s handling of the issues from October 2023. These issues were the subject of the resident’s formal complaint. This is because residents are expected to raise complaints with their landlords in a timely manner, usually within 12 months. This is to ensure the landlord has a fair opportunity to review the complaints while they are still ‘live’, and the evidence is available to reach a decision.
  2. The resident’s complaints relating to a discretionary housing payment (made in 2021), a change of her locks (in 2016), and the landlord’s decision to seek possession of the property due to rent arrears (in 2019) all occurred more than 12 months prior to the resident’s formal complaint. Therefore, these complaints will not be considered as part of this investigation.
  3. The resident has told us of other concerns such as a disconnected circuit breaker, potential electric shocks, and water leaks from an immersion heater. Before we can look at these issues the landlord needs to be given a fair opportunity to investigate and respond to any dissatisfaction. These are ‘new’ issues that were not included in the resident’s formal complaint. The scope of this investigation is focussed on the issues that were raised and responded to between October 2023 and May 2024. If the resident is unhappy with the landlord’s action or inaction after May 2024, she can progress this as a new formal complaint with the landlord.
  4. The resident has also raised concerns about police conduct, harassment, and welfare checks. The Ombudsman does not have the power to investigate complaints against the police. If the resident is unhappy with the actions of the police, she can raise these concerns with the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC).

Concerns about staff member conduct

  1. The resident was unhappy about the staff member’s behaviour. This included a complaint the staff member was pressuring her to leave the property, harassing, and bullying her. We will not decide if the staff member acted correctly or was pressuring, bullying, or harassing the resident. Instead, we will check if the landlord investigated the resident’s reports, responded to them, and acted based on the information it had.
  2. The resident raised concerns about the conduct of a staff member in October 2023. The landlord met with the staff member on 9 October 2023 to discuss the resident’s concerns. This was reasonable and aligned with its own policy on handling potential misconduct set out in the staff handbook. The staff handbook says in instances of potential misconduct, it will initially meet with the staff member to interview them.
  3. The landlord recorded that it was satisfied with the staff members explanation of events, and that it had offered to meet with the resident to discuss the concerns further. The resident disputes that the landlord offered to meet her to discuss these concerns prior to making a formal complaint on 14 November 2023. We have asked the landlord to provide records of its communication with the resident, including any offers it made to meet with her. The landlord has not provided any records of its offers to meet the resident to discuss concerns about a staff member.
  4. It is for the landlord to evidence its offers to meet with the resident to discuss her concerns. In the absence of this evidence, we are satisfied no such offers were made. This was unreasonable and caused the resident some distress and inconvenience.
  5. As part of the resident’s formal complaint she repeated her concerns about the staff members conduct. The landlord attempted to meet with the resident to discuss these concerns on 16 November 2023. This meeting was rearranged for 30 November 2023, and its complaint response at stage 1 said that it would need more information to investigate the complaint about the staff member.
  6. The landlord’s policy says that when dealing with potential misconduct it will establish the facts of the case. This could include gathering information such as witness statements. Therefore, the actions of the landlord when dealing with the resident’s complaint at stage 1 of its complaint process was reasonable. It was attempting to gather information from the resident to establish the facts.
  7. The landlord tried to visit the resident on 30 November and 5 December 2023 without success. The landlord pre-arranged the meetings, but the resident was unavailable on the day. It then emailed the resident on 11 December 2023 and said that, without evidence and witness statements, it could not take any further action. This was reasonable and aligned with its policy on handling potential misconduct.
  8. On 20 December 2023 the resident emailed the landlord with some further information. While the information provided did not include witness statements or evidence as requested, we have no evidence the landlord responded to this email. This was unreasonable as it did not align with the landlord ‘core service standard’ of responding to an email within 24 hours. This caused the resident some further distress and inconvenience.
  9. Following the 20 December 2023 email the landlord has been unable to evidence it contacted the resident again until 5 March 2024. This gap in communication of around 3 months was unreasonable and did not align with its core service standards. This continued to cause the resident some distress.
  10. On 5 March 2024 the landlord asked the resident again for further information to support her complaint. It attempted to visit the resident to discuss the concerns on 14, 18 and 26 March 2024 without success. The landlord pre-arranged the meetings, but the resident was unavailable on the day. These actions were reasonable and aligned with its policy on staff misconduct as it attempted to gather further information.
  11. The landlord visited the resident on 11 April 2024 with a Housing Support Officer. A meeting note recorded a discussion about the complaint, but the resident was unable to provide evidence to support the claims made. Further requests for supporting evidence were made on 18, 22 and 29 April 2024. These actions were reasonable and followed the landlord’s policy on staff misconduct.
  12. The landlord issued its stage 2 complaint response and said that it was unable to take further action due to insufficient evidence of any misconduct. This aligns with its staff handbook which says that if there is no evidence to support an allegation it will take no further action.
  13. Taking all the circumstances into account, there was maladministration by the landlord in the way it handled the resident’s concerns about a staff members conduct. This is because it did not attempt to gather information from the resident to support her concerns until after a formal complaint was raised, it failed to respond to the 20 December 2023 email, and it did not communicate with the resident for 3 months between December 2023 and March 2024.
  14. These failings had an adverse impact on the resident which caused her some distress and inconvenience. The landlord did not acknowledge its failings and made no attempt to put this right during its complaint handling. Our remedies guidance says that a payment of between £100 to £600 in compensation is fair for this type of complaint. We consider a payment of £100 fairly recognises the impact to the resident, while also considering the reasonable actions of the landlord.

Request for tenancy agreement

  1. There is no dispute that the resident requested a copy of her tenancy agreement in October 2023. However, the exact date is unknown as the landlord has not provided evidence of its communication with the resident about this request. From the resident’s formal complaint dated 14 November 2023 we can infer that the request was made on, or close to, 24 October 2023. This is because in the formal complaint the resident said she requested a tenancy agreement “3 weeks ago” and had only just received it.
  2. We have seen that there was a conversation between the landlord and resident on, or around, 8 November 2023. In this conversation the landlord said it had asked the resident to collect the tenancy agreement from its offices the week before. This was because it wanted to check the tenancy agreement was not going to be used fraudulently to exploit the resident. The landlord arranged for the tenancy agreement to be delivered to the resident’s property on 9 November 2023.
  3. To summarise, the landlord made the tenancy agreement available for collection roughly within a week of the resident’s request. Once a collection did not happen it arranged for a delivery to the resident’s address. The resident received a copy of the agreement within 3 weeks. There is no set policy on how long it should take to provide a copy of a tenancy agreement, but we would expect this to be done within a reasonable time.
  4. In this instance, we are of the view the landlord did provide access to the tenancy agreement within a reasonable time. It acted promptly to make the agreement available for collection around a week after the resident’s request. Taking all the circumstances into account there was no maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the request for the tenancy agreement.

Reports of ASB

  1. In the resident’s formal complaint dated 14 November 2023 she reported that a neighbour had been racist and thrown bags of dog faeces into her garden. The landlord wrote to the resident on 15 November 2023. It said because the resident did not want to meet, she would need to return diary sheets by 20 November 2023. This would then allow the landlord to identify and interview the perpetrators. It also recommended the resident report the matter to the police if she had not already done so.
  2. This was reasonable as the action of the landlord aligned with its ASB policy. Its ASB policy says that where there has been a potential hate crime, such as racist behaviour, it will make initial contact within 1 working day and offer to meet with the victim. It will also ask or advise a resident to contact the police.
  3. The landlord sent a letter to all residents in the area on 17 November 2023. The letter advised the landlord’s zero-tolerance stance on ASB. It also provided a consent form and diary sheets for residents to report any ASB they might have witnessed. This action was reasonable as it followed its ASB policy. The policy says that following an initial report the landlord will attempt to gather further evidence.
  4. On 20 November 2023 the landlord issued a letter to the resident which confirmed it had not received her diary sheets as requested. It said that it could not move the ASB matter forward without this information. It also asked again whether the resident had reported the incident to police. This shows the landlord was proactive in its communication with the resident. The landlord’s actions were reasonable and continued to align with its ASB policy on gathering evidence.
  5. On 4 December 2023 the landlord recorded that it had not received a response from the resident relating to ASB. It noted that it would leave the case open for the resident to contact them. There is no further evidence of ASB reports or communication about ASB between the landlord and resident.
  6. The landlord’s ASB policy sets out that if after 4 weeks of the initial report there is insufficient evidence and no further reports of ASB it should close the case. The policy says that it will communicate to the victim when a case is closed and the reasons why. The failure to follow its policy on closing ASB cases was unreasonable. The resident was left wondering what had happened with her ASB reports. This caused the resident some distress and inconvenience.
  7. The landlord’s ASB policy says that it will set up an action plan to record a chronology of incidents, actions set and taken, requests for information, and risk assessments. However, there is no evidence to show that any action plan was created. The failure to follow its ASB policy was unreasonable. Despite this, there was no detriment to the resident for this failing. Even though there was no action plan, the landlord did take prompt action to progress the case. The reason the case could not progress was due to a lack of evidence, this would likely have been the case even if an action plan were set up.
  8. Taking all the circumstances into account there was service failure in the landlord’s handling of ASB reports. The landlord did not acknowledge its failings and made no attempt to put this right during its complaint handling. However, even if the landlord’s actions had been reasonable there was likely no permanent impact to the resident. This is because even if the landlord’s actions had been reasonable, the result of the ASB case would likely have remained the same.
  9. Where there is a service failure which did not significantly affect the overall outcome for the resident our remedies guidance suggests a payment of between £50 to £100 is fair. Using this guide we consider a payment of £50 is fair to recognise the impact on the resident of the landlord’s failure.

Complaint handling

  1. The landlord’s complaint policy says that it will respond at stage 1 of its process within 10 working days and stage 2 of its process within 20 working days. It says that it will acknowledge the complaint and escalation within 5 working days of it being made.
  2. The landlord’s complaint handling at stage 1 of its process was reasonable. It acknowledged and responded to the complaint within the timescales set out in its policy.
  3. The resident emailed the landlord on 20 December 2023 and asked to escalate the complaint. However, no action was taken by the landlord at this time. A second request to escalate the complaint was made on 1 March 2024. This was unreasonable and did not align with its complaint policy timescales. The landlord provided no explanation for the failure to escalate the complaint between December 2023 and March 2024. This caused the resident some distress.
  4. Following the second escalation request, the landlord contacted the resident on:
    1. 5 and 14 March 2024 and said it had not ‘fully completed’ its stage 1 process
    2. 4 April 2024 and asked the resident to put in writing what parts of the stage 1 complaint response she disagreed with
    3. 9 April 2024 to say a Supported Housing Officer would be visiting her to help support with her stage 1 complaint
    4. 18 April and 22 April 2024 and asked for further information so it could ‘complete’ the stage 1 response
    5. 29 April 2024 it told the resident it had not completed its stage 1 process and asked for more information
  5. This was unreasonable and did not align with its complaint policy. The policy says that after an escalation request it must immediately notify its Assistant Director and acknowledge the request within 5 working days. The failure to do this delayed the stage 2 response and caused confusion as the stage 1 process had already been completed in November 2023. This caused the resident some distress and inconvenience.
  6. The landlord sent its stage 2 complaint response on 7 May 2024. This was 94 working days after the first request to escalate the complaint. The landlord did not explain the reasons for this delay. The time taken to provide the stage 2 response was unreasonable and not in line with its complaint policy. This caused the resident some additional distress and inconvenience.
  7. Taking all the circumstances into account there was maladministration in the landlord’s complaint handling. We consider a payment of £150 fairly recognises the impact to the resident of the landlord’s actions. This accounts for both the impact in failing to escalate the complaint in line with its policy, and the time and trouble taken by the resident in chasing for a stage 2 complaint response.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 41.c. of the Scheme the following complaints are outside the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction to investigate:
    1. report of window repairs
    2. request for a new front door
    3. report the landlord was arranging repair visits without telling her
  2. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the scheme, there was maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s:
    1. concerns about a staff members conduct
    2. associated complaint
  3. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the scheme, there was service failure in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of ASB.
  4. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the scheme, there was no maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the residents request for a copy of her tenancy agreement.

Orders

  1. Within 4 weeks the landlord is ordered to:
    1. write an apology to the resident for the failings identified in this report and provide a copy of this to us
    2. pay compensation to the resident of £300, broken down as:
      1. £150 relating to the handling of the resident’s complaint
      2. £100 relating to the handling of the resident’s concerns about a staff member
      3. £50 relating to the handling of the resident’s reports of ASB
    3. provide evidence to us that it has made the compensation payments to the resident