Housing Ombudsman issues special report after slew of complaints handling failures at London borough

The Housing Ombudsman has issued a special report on the London Borough of Lambeth after consistently identifying poor record-keeping, significant delays and failure to respond to complaints, and failings in responding to repairs.

The Ombudsman issued the London borough with five complaint handling failure orders between January and September 2021, three of which it did not comply with. This led to the Ombudsman contacting Lambeth to explore the issues impacting its complaint handling. Following this, the Ombudsman agreed an action plan with the council and held regular meetings to help progress the complaints.

In November 2021, the Ombudsman also issued nine formal decisions to the council that were progressed together to identify any systemic learning. The three themes identified across the cases were poor record-keeping, significant delays or failure to respond to complaints, and failure to respond to repairs.

As a result of the investigations, the Ombudsman proposed the council undertake reviews in each of the three areas.

A lack of record-keeping had significantly contributed to six complaints with findings of maladministration, so the Ombudsman proposed Lambeth should ensure that accurate and accessible records are kept and maintained.

In three cases, the Ombudsman ordered the council to review the redesign of its repair and maintenance services to ensure that it applied to planned works and works that fell outside day-to-day repairs.

The council was also ordered to consider its complaint handling procedures in three cases to ensure that the failures could not happen again.

Richard Blakeway, Housing Ombudsman, welcomed the Lambeth’s “constructive engagement with this work”.

“As well as giving the landlord insight into their complaint handling on these cases, their actions will also help extend fairness to other residents and help prevent complaints in future,” he said. 

“It is part of our wider work to promote learning from complaints, monitor landlord performance and extend investigations under the new powers in our Scheme. To date this work has covered sector wide issues through our thematic reports. This is the first concerning an individual landlord where we had seen multiple indicators of service failings.

“The themes identified in these cases highlight the importance of landlords maintaining appropriate and easily accessible records, and of operating complaint handling services which align with the principles of effective dispute resolution. These are recognising what has gone wrong, seeking to put things right, and learning from outcomes. These principles are central to our Complaint Handling Code.” 

A spokesperson for Lambeth said the council had been "working intensively" with the Housing Ombudsman over several months to resolve the issues he had raised.

"We will continue to positively engage with the Ombudsman and we are committed to tackling any issues raised to ensure that we provide the best possible service for all our tenants. By focusing on the themes and insights raised by the Ombudsman we ensure we are continually listening to our customers and ensuring we learn valuable lessons along the way.”

The spokesperson added: “We have instituted additional training for staff and contractors and introduced a dynamic appointment system that gives full visibility and real-time updating of repair appointments. Additionally, we have invested in a dedicated housing portal that now allows residents to report their repairs online and upload photographs to aid diagnosis. We also have a dedicated housing database that ensures housing repair and maintenance information is securely held against uniquely-referenced properties and tenancies. This has now been expanded to include planned maintenance projects so all work information – individual repairs and larger maintenance projects – is held on one system to allow for efficient management and property specific information retrieval.

“But we have also concentrated on making improvements to the day-to-day delivery of repairs and maintenance work. Over the last two years we have procured a wide range of new contracts, as part of our transformation of our repairs service. Last summer, new contractors – along with the council’s own in-house repairs team – took over responsibility for repairs and maintenance at council properties, as part of Lambeth’s drive to improve standards and services for our residents. This has included additional technology to manage the day to day service to ensure an improved customer journey.

“This year, we are commencing a programme of detailed stock condition surveys across our housing stock that will ensure we have up-to-date information on the condition of all residents’ homes. This will inform a long-term investment plan to proactively keep residents’ homes in good condition and reduce demand for individual repairs.” 

Adam Carey