Council “failed to act appropriately” under Equality Act during Anti-Social Behaviour case, finds Ombudsman

The Housing Ombudsman has told Sandwell Council to review its Reasonable Adjustments policy after the local authority “failed to act appropriately” under the Equality Act 2010 during an anti-social behaviour (ASB) case.

The Ombudsman said that the resident behind the complaint has OCD, heightened anxiety and morbid depression. He gets panic attacks, suffers with insomnia and is dyslexic.

According to the report, the landlord has been aware of the resident’s complex mental health needs since 2005.

On 31 July 2021, the resident wrote to the landlord to report two domestic arguments between his neighbours that continued throughout the evening of 30 July and into the early hours of 31 July 2021.

The Ombudsman acknowledged that the resident “has concerns about the impact of his neighbours’ behaviour on his mental health and wellbeing”.

The report noted that after the first reporting of the anti-social behaviour, in which the resident reminded the landlord of his mental health needs, he was “forced to remind them of the detrimental impact it was having on him six times over the next five months”.

During this time there was “little action” from the landlord to respond effectively to his needs, said the Ombudsman.

On two occasions, the landlord took action on the resident’s concerns which was to signpost to Victims Support nearly three months after the initial complaint and then referring to other support agencies nearly two months after this.

The Ombudsman's investigation found that it was “only through the actions of the resident himself”, contacting the NHS 24/7 Urgent Mental Health Helpline to ask for further support regarding his mental health and support regarding his housing situation, that referrals were made to the appropriate mental health and safeguarding services.

According to the Ombudsman, in its final response, the landlord failed to respond to the resident’s query about Reasonable Adjustments, and “even when requested to provide evidence around this for the Ombudsman, only presented its Housing Allocations policy rather than its own Reasonable Adjustments policy”.

The Ombudsman investigated and concluded that the landlord failed to demonstrate that it recognised its obligations under the Equality Act 2010 and the Social Housing Regulator’s Tenant Involvement and Empowerment Standard, and its own ASB policy.

“It has not evidenced that it had taken steps to ensure that it understood the needs of the resident nor that it had appropriately responded to those needs”, the report said.

The Ombudsman also found maladministration for how Sandwell handled the ASB due to “poor communication throughout”, as well as maladministration for the complaint handling due to “not recognising dissatisfaction as a complaint and therefore delaying a stage one response”.

To remedy the injustice caused, the Ombudsman recommended the landlord apologise to the resident and pay £1,000 in compensation, made up of:

• £200 for the distress and inconvenience to the resident as a result of its communication failures with regards to the ASB reported by the resident
• £600 for its failure to evidence that it took reasonable and appropriate steps with regards to the resident vulnerabilities when dealing with his reports of ASB
• £200 for its complaint handling failures.

The landlord was also told to ensure that its Reasonable Adjustments Policy is provided to the resident, the Ombudsman, and is easily accessible on its website.

Richard Blakeway, Housing Ombudsman, said: “It is clear that the landlord could have offered the resident additional support and that it missed multiple opportunities to do so, including referring him to relevant services at a much earlier point.

“This represents a significant failure by the landlord which resulted in unnecessary upset to the resident and an understandable feeling that the landlord was not taking his concerns about his mental health and wellbeing seriously."

Blakeway added: “Having a Reasonable Adjustments policy in place and making it both accessible to residents whilst also having staff adequately trained on its use, is vital as social housing grapples with the complexity of the cases they’re dealing with.”

In a statement Sandwell Council said: “We fully accept the findings of the Ombudsman in this case and have apologised for those failures to our tenant. We have also learnt some important lessons from the Ombudsman’s findings that will ensure future ASB investigations assess and address the individual needs of the complainant and subject of complaints.

“This case highlighted the absence of a clear reasonable adjustment policy for our investigating officers to follow.

“This policy is now in place with training plans in development to embed its principles. We accept our communication in this case didn’t meet our normal expectations or standards and we continue to work hard to ensure our case management principles, which place emphasis on the importance of good communication, are complied with in each and every case."

The council added that refresher training on complaint investigation had also been rolled out and a wider review of its complaint handling processes was already underway.

Lottie Winson