Westminster City Council (202118080)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202118080

Westminster City Council

27 April 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 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:
   1. The landlord’s handling of repairs to the resident’s garden gate.
   2. The conduct of the landlord’s staff.

Background

2. The resident is an eighty-two-year-old tenant of the landlord with medical conditions.
3. On 4 November 2019, the resident reported to the landlord that her garden gate needed repairs. Contractors arrived to inspect the property on 12 November 2019, and on 18 November 2019 they completed repairs to the gate. The contractors returned on 24 January 2020 for a follow up, but they were advised by the resident that repairs to the gate were completed. Due to this, the contractors cancelled the appointment.
4. No further reports of the gate needing repairs were made to the landlord until the resident did so on 19 April 2021. Contractors attended and inspected the property on 30 April 2021, and booked an appointment for 7 May 2021 to carry out repairs. However, the landlord subsequently reported that it had no knowledge of this appointment.
5. During May and July 2021, the resident raised stage one and final stage formal complaints regarding the repairs to the gate, and the conduct of the landlord’s staff. She stated that it had taken several months for her gate to be repaired, and she linked this to her home then being burgled and vandalised. She further explained that the burglary had left her traumatised.
6. An appointment for repairs was booked for 18 June 2021, however this was cancelled due to adverse weather conditions and rearranged for 15 July 2021. The resident received a letter from the contractor on 24 June 2021 confirming the appointment. However, she was dissatisfied that the confirmation letter suggested that they had difficulty contacting her, and she was displeased that her new appointment was not arranged for an earlier date. The landlord attempted to re-arrange this for an earlier date by asking if its contractors could be offered overtime to do so, or by moving them to a communal hall or lock up, but it was unsuccessful in doing so.
7. Furthermore, the resident stated that, when she contacted the landlord’s repairs team in July 2021, one of its staff members stated to her “you and the Ombudsman, we need to have a word with you.” The resident felt threatened by this statement, and she wanted the call to be investigated and the speaker of the comments to be identified.
8. In response to the resident’s stage one and final stage complaints, in May and August 2021 the landlord apologised to her for the above delays in its gate repairs that it outlined to her, and for the miscommunication between her and the contractors. The landlord explained that the letter that she had received was a standard template used by its contractors when they had difficulty reaching residents, and it acknowledged that it was not appropriate to use the letter to confirm appointments. The landlord also listened to recordings of the resident’s telephone calls with its contact centre during the period from May to July 2021, and it confirmed that the Ombudsman was referenced once by her, but that there was no evidence of her being interrupted by or receiving threatening comments from its staff. 
9. The landlord acknowledged that the communication between it, the contractors and the resident had been poor on some occasions, and that adverse weather conditions had delayed repairs to the gate longer than expected. As a result of this, it offered her £145 total compensation, which was calculated as follows. £45 for the delay in the contractor contacting the resident between 16 December 2019 and 24 January 2020, £10 for failing to contact her on 18 June 2021 when the gate was originally due to be fitted, £45 for the delays between 18 June and 15 July 2021 when the gate was renewed, and £45 for the distress and inconvenience caused to her. The landlord also asked its contractors to reword their appointment letters so that, in future, they did not imply that residents had been difficult to contact.
10. The resident was dissatisfied with the landlord’s final stage complaint response, however, explaining that she required a reimbursement of the losses that she had incurred from the burglary and vandalism, and that a six-figure sum would be appropriate due to the length of the repair delays and their effect on her health and safety. She also disputed its response to her complaint about the conduct of its staff during the telephone call in July 2021, which she reiterated, and she added that she wanted to ensure that this and its repair delays did not happen again, especially to vulnerable residents such as her. Due to her dissatisfaction, the resident referred her complaint to the Ombudsman.

Assessment and findings

Scope of investigation

11. The resident has reported that she experienced financial losses, trauma and health and safety issues from the burglary and vandalism at her property. This Service nevertheless does not have the authority or expertise to determine liability or award damages in the way that the courts or insurers might for losses from burglaries, vandalism, or physical or mental ill-health, including trauma. Therefore, we are unable to determine the landlord’s liability for damages to reimburse the resident for the effect of the burglary and vandalism on her, and so these matters are outside of the scope of this investigation.
12. The Ombudsman’s own awards of compensation are not intended to punish or make an example of landlords, or to reimburse residents’ losses, with damages in the way that a court or insurer might. In assessing an appropriate level of compensation, this Service takes account of a range of factors including any particular distress and inconvenience caused by the issues, the amount of time and trouble incurred by the resident in pursuing matters with the landlord, and the level of detriment caused by the landlord’s actions. We do so at a similar level to the amounts recommended by landlords’ own compensation policies and procedures, and by our own remedies guidance, and so we do not award residents higher levels of compensation, such as in six figures.

Policies, Procedures and Agreements

13. Under the resident’s tenancy agreement and the landlord’s tenant handbook, it is responsible for repairing the structure and outside of her building, such as pathways, fences, and other entrances to the building. It also has a responsibility to provide and follow appointments for substantial non-urgent repairs.
14. The landlord’s tenant handbook additionally states that it expects all of its staff to provide a consistently high level of service.
15. The landlord’s tenant handbook confirms that it has public liability insurance for claims including losses or injuries caused by its negligence, such as those affecting personal belongings. Its compensation and payment schemes give it discretion to compensate the resident with £10 for missed appointments, and from £500 per year for its delays in carrying out repairs or her distress and inconvenience.

The landlord’s handling of repairs to the resident’s garden gate

16. The resident had been given a reasonable expectation from the landlord’s tenant handbook and its contractors’ appointments that repairs to her garden gate would be completed by the timeframes that had been given to her by them from December 2019 to January 2020 and from June to July 2021. It failed to meet her expectations or its standards regarding the repairs, however, as there were delays to the repairs to the gate.
17. Miscommunication was a contributing factor to the delays, and this is something which the landlord appropriately identified. When its contractors arrived at the resident’s property in January 2020 and April 2021, they should have inspected the gate and confirmed with her what works were to be completed and when. While it is reasonable for the landlord’s complaint responses to admit and apologise for its failings in providing clear communication to her, it is recommended below that it review its staff’s and contractors’ training needs in relation to non-urgent repair communication to help prevent future difficulties.
18. Furthermore, the landlord’s and its contractors’ record keeping needed to have been more effective. This is because its contractors booked an appointment for repairs to the resident’s garden gate for 7 May 2021, but this was unactioned at the time due to the landlord the having no record of this. It was therefore appropriate for it to apologise to her in its complaint responses for this error. However, to reduce the likelihood of a similar situation occurring again in the future, the landlord has been recommended below to review of its and its contractors’ record keeping processes for non-urgent repairs, and to consider additional training around the way in which non-urgent repairs are logged by them.
19. Nevertheless, the landlord subsequently demonstrated a willingness to put things right for the resident, by investigating alternative arrangements when her garden gate repair appointment was cancelled on 18 June 2021 due to adverse weather conditions. It was appropriate for it to seek alternatives to the rearranged appointment on 15 July 2021, such as its contractors completing the gate repairs in a communal hall or lock up. The landlord also demonstrated that it was open to putting things right by asking if its contractors could be offered overtime to attempt to provide an earlier appointment for the resident, as it recognised that delays were causing an inconvenience to her.
20. Additionally, it would have been unreasonable to have expected the landlord to have predicted that its garden gate repairs would be delayed due to adverse weather conditions in June, as this was an unexpected external factor that was beyond its control. Nevertheless, its above actions accorded with these circumstances by making meaningful attempts to get the repairs completed by an earlier date and so they were reasonable.
21. Furthermore, the landlord responded suitably to the resident’s dissatisfaction with the updating letter from its contractors in June 2021, as it confirmed that this was not appropriate and that it had spoken to them to reword such letters so that these only confirmed appointments instead of suggesting that residents were difficult to contact. This demonstrated not only its openness to learning from outcomes, but also to putting things right for her. It was appropriate for the landlord to acknowledge the grievance caused to the resident and to implement proactive measures, such as amending its contractors’ letters, to ensure future issues with their correspondence were prevented, and to maintain a healthy landlord-resident relationship.
22. The total compensation of £145 offered by the landlord to the resident in its final stage complaint response was proportionate to put things right, as the amount was in line with its compensation and payment schemes and the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance. The amount offered reflected the missed garden gate repair appointment on 18 June 2021, the length of the delays to the repair in December 2019 to January 2020 and June to July 2021, and any distress and inconvenience caused to her by this at the levels recommended by its schemes and our guidance. The latter recommending compensation from £50 for such failures to meet service standards and incorrectly addressed correspondence.
23. It was also reasonable for the landlord’s complaint responses to have identified the factors that caused the delays to the garden gate repairs, and to have apologised to the resident for its failure to meet her expectations in respect of these. She also wanted a reimbursement of her losses caused by the burglary and vandalism, which is something that its complaint responses were unable to action under its compensation and payment schemes, as its tenant handbook confirmed that these were covered by its public liability insurance instead.
24. The landlord has therefore been recommended below to provide the resident with details as to how to make a public liability insurance claim to it for her losses from the burglary, ill-health and vandalism that she reported. It has also been recommended below to pay her £145 compensation that it previously awarded her, if it has not already done so.

The conduct of landlord’s staff

25. Under the tenant handbook, the landlord’s staff are all expected to provide a consistently high level of service. When the resident reported to it that a member of its staff had threatened her during a telephone call in July 2021 with the comment “you and the Ombudsman, we need to have a word with you”, it followed the handbook’s obligation for its staff to all provide a consistently high level of service by seeking to confirm this. The landlord acted appropriately to do so by investigating and reviewing recordings of multiple calls with its contact centre from the period from May to July 2021 and informing the resident of its findings in its final stage complaint response to her.
26. Since the landlord found that there was no evidence from its recordings that threatening language was used towards the resident by its staff, there was no further action that it could take in response to her report of this. Therefore, there was no failing on its part in respect of how it handled the report about the conduct of its staff member, as it acted in accordance with its tenant handbook and conducted a thorough investigation into this.

Determination

27. In accordance with paragraph 55(b) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, the landlord has offered redress to the resident prior to investigation which, in the Ombudsman’s opinion, resolves the complaint about its handling of repairs to her garden gate satisfactorily.
28. In accordance with paragraph 54 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was no maladministration by the landlord in respect of the conduct of its staff.

Recommendations

29. It is recommended that the landlord:
    1. Pay the resident the £145 compensation that it previously awarded her, if it has not already done so.
    2. Provide the resident with details as to how to make a public liability insurance claim to it for her losses from the burglary, ill-health and vandalism that she reported.
    3. Review its staff’s and contractors’ training needs in relation to non-urgent repair communication and logging in order to consider additional training and improvements for them in light of the resident’s case.
    4. Review its and its contractors’ record keeping processes for non-urgent repairs in order to consider improvements to them in light of the resident’s case.