Kirklees Council (202322546)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202322546

Kirklees Council

19 July 2024

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 resident’s complaint is about the landlord’s handling of his report of threatening behaviour by a neighbour.

Background

2. The resident is a secure tenant of the landlord. His tenancy at the property began on 6 September 2010. The property is a 1 bedroom third floor flat within a residential block. The resident has autism spectrum disorder (ASD) which is recorded by the landlord on its systems.
3. The resident contacted the landlord on 6 April 2023 to report that neighbour A, who also lives in the block, had insulted and verbally threatened him. The landlord said it would visit neighbour A to discuss the incident. From 19 May 2023, the resident began reporting loud music from neighbour A’s property.
4. On 30 June 2023, the resident made a formal complaint to the landlord. He said that the landlord had “done very little” to address neighbour A’s behaviour. He said the landlord was now ignoring his emails and had not provided any resolution to the matter. On 5 July 2023, the resident told the landlord that he believed it had told neighbour A that he had made complaints about them. He said this had put him in danger and asked for it to be added as part of his complaint.
5. The landlord provided its stage 1 complaint response on 21 July 2023. It said that:
   1. The police were investigating the resident’s allegation that neighbour A had threatened him.
   2. It would ensure that “appropriate action” was taken once the police’s investigation was complete.
   3. It would make a referral to the environmental health department to investigate his complaints of noise nuisance.
   4. It found that the service the resident had received “was outside of the procedures that are expected of our staff in terms of response times”.
   5. Going forwards, it would ensure that it provided responses within 5 working days. It encouraged the resident to make contact through its customer service team, rather than directly with staff members, to ensure that all communications could be logged and tracked.
   6. It would arrange to visit the resident and complete a vulnerability assessment to help it understand his circumstances and the level of support he required.
6. On or around 14 August 2023, the resident asked to escalate his complaint to stage 2 of the landlord’s complaint process. He said that the landlord had not even attempted to speak with neighbour A and that an ongoing police investigation did not prevent it from doing so. He said the landlord had not addressed his allegation that it had told neighbour A that he had complained about them.
7. The landlord provided its stage 2 complaint response on 12 September 2023. It acknowledged that it had failed to complete the actions it had committed to in its stage 1 response and would do these “as a matter of urgency”. It apologised that the resident’s ASB reports had not been dealt with in keeping with its policy and said it would set up a new case to review all information he had previously submitted. The landlord denied that it had named the resident as the complainant to neighbour A.
8. The resident brought his complaint to the Ombudsman on 5 November 2023. He accused the landlord of ‘passing the buck’ to the police and environmental health. He said that “if a tenant has been threatened then doing nothing is not a viable response” and accused the landlord of failing to appropriately safeguard him as a vulnerable adult.

Assessment and findings

Scope of the investigation

9. In investigating this complaint, it is not the role of the Ombudsman to determine whether the threatening behaviour reported by the resident occurred. The purpose of this investigation is to assess the landlord’s handling of his reports and whether this was in keeping with its policy.
10. The Housing Ombudsman Service can only assess the actions of councils in respect of their provision and management of social housing. The resident’s reports of noise nuisance from neighbour A’s flat were investigated by environmental health, which falls outside the jurisdiction of this Service. Accordingly, this investigation will not examine environmental health’s handling of the noise reports. As it was aware that environmental health was managing the noise complaints, it was reasonable for the landlord to take no further action at that time.
11. In his original complaint, the resident asked the landlord not to grant a secure tenancy to neighbour A. When later bringing his complaint to the Ombudsman, the resident expressed a desire for his landlord to commence legal action to end neighbour A’s tenancy.
12. The role of the Ombudsman is to resolve disputes between landlords and tenants. This includes ordering redress which may be appropriate to ‘put right’ any service failure by the landlord which we identify. Ending the tenancy of neighbour A would not amount to such redress. Decisions of that nature are rightly within the full control of the landlord, which is best placed to make them.

Handling of threatening behaviour

13. The landlord’s antisocial behaviour (ASB) policy sets out a definition of ASB which includes “abuse, intimidation and threats”. The resident’s report made on 6 April 2023 clearly amounted to this. It would therefore have been appropriate for the landlord to open an ASB case at this point. However, the landlord failed to open a case then, or at any point during the period examined by this investigation.
14. Within the stage 2 complaint response, the landlord acknowledged this failure and said it would set up an ASB case and review all the preceding evidence. The landlord has provided the Ombudsman with a chronology of events for the resident’s complaint which runs up to May 2024. There is no evidence within this that the landlord ever opened this ASB case.
15. Despite failing to open an ASB case, the landlord did respond appropriately to the resident’s initial report. It contacted the police, who the resident had also reported the incident to, to arrange a joint visit to neighbour A. It also visited the resident and discussed the incident. Whilst it is not evident in the landlord’s records, the resident has said that the landlord unsuccessfully attempted to visit neighbour A at least twice shortly after the incident.
16. The landlord has provided no evidence that it contacted the resident again until 12 May 2023, over a month after the incident. This contact was prompted by the resident chasing an update via his local councillor. The landlord’s ASB policy says that it will “keep victims and witnesses informed” it says it will provide victims with an “agreed method of contact and frequency (e.g. weekly email)”. The landlord failed to do this, causing the resident time and trouble in pursuing it for updates. This occurred several times during the period of complaint.
17. On 12 May 2023, the landlord told the resident that neighbour A had entered residential therapy. It said it did not wish to disrupt this and so would wait until neighbour A had finished their treatment before arranging to meet with them and their support worker. This was a reasonable approach and there was no immediate risk to the resident whilst neighbour A was away from the property. The landlord also told the resident that the police were investigating the incident and would update him separately.
18. On 6 June 2023, the resident chased the landlord again for an update on whether it had spoken to neighbour A. The landlord responded confirming that neighbour A had now returned to their property. It said it had spoken to neighbour A’s support worker about the incident but would arrange a home visit to speak with neighbour A directly after the police had spoken to them.
19. The resident contacted the landlord again on 14 June 2023 to enquire whether the police had spoken with neighbour A yet. The landlord directed him to contact the police directly to ask this. Considering the landlord’s position that it would wait until the police had spoken to neighbour A before it would do so, it would be reasonable to expect it to be aware of whether this had happened and able to appropriately update the resident itself.
20. On 30 June 2023, the resident made his formal complaint. Again, there is no evidence that the landlord had contacted him about the case since its email over 2 weeks prior. Within his complaint, the resident accused the landlord of ‘ignoring’ his emails. This Service has seen no evidence of any emails sent by the resident which the landlord did not reply to in a timely manner. However, the resident had been forced to repeatedly chase the landlord via email for updates over a period of several months.
21. In his complaint the resident also said that he believed the landlord had identified him to neighbour A as having made complaints about them. The basis for this accusation appears to be a ‘calling card’ which the resident says was put through neighbour A’s door and mentioned his name. As stated earlier, the landlord has provided no records of any attempted visits to neighbour A and denies that the resident was named to them as complainant. This Service is therefore unable to prefer either party’s account over the others.
22. However, it is worth noting that the incident of 6 April 2023 involved only the resident and neighbour A. It would therefore have been impossible for the landlord to discuss this with neighbour A without them being aware that the resident was the complainant.
23. In its stage 1 complaint response, the landlord acknowledge that it had failed to meet its procedural “response times”. The stage 2 response also identified that it had failed to open an ASB case. However, the landlord did not make any offer of redress for these failings. The landlord’s redress policy allows it to make discretionary compensation payments where it has failed to follow policy and procedure. This would have been appropriate in this case where its failings spanned several months and caused the resident distress and inconvenience.
24. The landlord sent a “further” stage 2 response on 14 September 2022. Within this, it clarified that the police investigation did not stop it from speaking to any parties involved in the incident. It said that “however given that your case was subject to an active investigation for a crime, a decision was made that the Police would take a lead. If the Police had found any evidence of wrong doing, [the landlord] would have considered if any action against the tenant was necessary”.
25. The landlord’s position was not in keeping with its ASB policy, which says that its approach “centres on early intervention and prevention to stop issues escalating in the first place” and that it will “seek resolutions with urgency and understanding and stop situations escalating through early intervention”.
26. It was reasonable for the landlord to allow the police to take the lead on an incident which may amount to a crime. However, as it acknowledged, this did not prevent it from speaking with neighbour A or considering the use of early interventions. The landlord’s ASB policy lists ‘resolutions’ it can offer including mediation, warnings and acceptable behaviour contracts, all of which it could have deployed whilst the criminal investigation was ongoing. This would have helped ensure the resident felt support and prevented any potential repeat or escalation of behaviour by neighbour A.
27. The landlord’s position damaged the landlord-tenant relationship and the resident’s confidence in the landlord. The resident has accused the landlord of ‘letting him down’ and failing to safeguard him or enforce the conditions of its own tenancy agreement. This was likely exacerbated by the landlord’s change of position, having made reasonable attempts to speak to neighbour A immediately after the incident before deciding it would not do so until the police had. This raised the resident’s expectations of a prompt resolution to the situation which were later undermined.
28. It is also of concern that the landlord appeared to show no regard for the the criminal standard of proof (which informs police investigations) being higher than the civil standard (under which a landlord would act). The police taking no further action following their investigation did not automatically mean that it was not appropriate for the landlord to intervene in any way – even if this intervention did not result in any formal action.
29. In its stage 1 complaint response, the landlord committed to completing a vulnerability assessment with the resident to identify how it could best support him. By the time of its stage 2 complaint response, almost 2 months later, it had still failed to complete this. The landlord again offered no redress for this failure to fulfil its commitment.
30. The landlord did not complete the vulnerability assessment until 12 December 2023, 3 months after the stage 2 response. Whilst the Ombudsman notes an initial delay was due to the resident objecting to a specific member of staff being involved in the assessment, it is unclear why it took the landlord so long to arrange this.
31. The landlord’s vulnerability assessment document says that it is designed to help the landlord “identify vulnerable individuals, witnesses and complainants” and “ascertain what support and protection is required in any given situation”. It would have been appropriate for the landlord to have completed the vulnerability assessment far earlier. Particularly considering it was aware of the resident’s ASD. This would also have enabled it to signpost him to any appropriate support services in a timely way. There is no evidence that the landlord appropriately considered the resident’s vulnerabilities or the potential impact of the incident upon him prior to him bringing this to its attention via his complaint.
32. In summary, the landlord failed to log an ASB case following the resident’s report and then failed to provide him with updates, leading to him repeatedly chasing it. The landlord backtracked on its initial commitment to speak with neighbour A and abdicated responsibility for investigation to the police, failing to consider early the interventions its policy outlines. The landlord failed to appropriately consider the resident’s vulnerabilities until its stage 1 complaint response. It then took until 5 months after this to complete the vulnerability assessment it committed to. This accumulation of failings amounts to maladministration.

Determination

33. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s report of threatening behaviour.

Orders

34. Within 4 weeks of the date of this determination, the Ombudsman orders the landlord to:
    1. Pay the resident £300 compensation for the distress and inconvenience caused by the maladministration identified in this report.
    2. Apologise to the resident for the maladministration identified in this report.
    3. Take steps to remind ASB case handlers of the importance of:
       1. Appropriately recording all reports of ASB on its relevant system.
       2. Carrying out a risk/vulnerability assessment with complainants as early as possible and signposting to any appropriate support.
       3. Agreeing a contact method and frequency with all complainants, as per its policy.
35. The landlord should provide evidence of compliance with these orders to this Service.