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Stevenage Borough Council (202205985)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202205985

Stevenage Borough Council

30 January 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 complaint is regarding the landlord’s:
    1. Handling of the resident’s Right to Buy application.
    2. Response to enquiries regarding planned improvement works.
    3. Response to repair reports. 
    4. Handling of the resident’s personal information.
    5. Complaint handling and communication. 

Determination (jurisdictional decision)

  1. When a complaint is brought to the Ombudsman, we must consider all the circumstances of the case as there are sometimes reasons why a complaint will not be investigated.
  2. After carefully considering all the evidence, I have determined that the complaint, as set out above, is not within the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction.

Summary of events

  1. The resident is a tenant of the landlord, a local authority. Her tenancy began in 1992 and the property is described a 4-bedroom detached house.
  2. Records show the resident contacted the landlord on several occasions between 10 January and 25 May 2022, when she submitted a complaint via its website (although landlord records refer to a complaint being received on 8 April 2022). The resident raised concerns over the landlord’s handling of 3 Right to Buy applications that had been submitted by her and her son and disputed the landlord’s position that only 2 had been made. She was unhappy that documents provided during the latest application process had been mislaid, that planned improvement works had been suspended as a result of confusion over the status of the Right to Buy application(s) and with the landlord’s overall communication regarding these issues.
  3. The landlord provided a stage 2 response on 23 May 2022 and a final, stage 3 response on 21 June 2022 which referred the resident to this service if she remained unhappy with its response. It upheld the complaint regarding reported poor communication and offered to pay for the replacement of documents it had lost during the most recent Right to Buy application.

Reasons

  1. Paragraph 42(j) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme states that “the Ombudsman may not consider complaints which, in the Ombudsman’s opinion fall properly within the jurisdiction of another Ombudsman, regulator, or complaint-handling body.
  2. In correspondence with the resident on 7 October 2022, the Ombudsman advised the resident that her complaints regarding the landlord’s handling of her Right to Buy application(s) and its handling of her personal information would not be considered by this service. This was because complaints regarding a local authority’s handling of Right to Buy applications fall under the remit of the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman (the LGSCO) and complaints about the handling of one’s personal information are better dealt with by the Information Commissioner’s Office (the ICO). The resident was provided with the contact details for both organisations.
  3. Having reviewed the remainder of the resident’s complaint, the Ombudsman considers that her concerns about planned improvement works, the landlord’s communication and its complaint responses to the issues raised are all inextricably linked to and related to the landlord’s handling of the Right to Buy application. Therefore, these are also complaints which the Ombudsman cannot investigate further as they would fall within the LGSCO’s jurisdiction. 
  4. Paragraph 42(a) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme states that “the Ombudsman may not consider complaints which, in the Ombudsman’s opinion are made prior to having exhausted a member’s complaints procedure”.
  5. After referring her complaint to this service, in July 2022 the resident raised further concerns regarding the landlord’s reported failure to carry out day to day repairs as well as planned improvements at her property. However, these issues did not form part of the resident’s original complaint and were therefore not considered within the landlord’s complaint responses. The Ombudsman has not seen evidence that these issues have been raised with the landlord as a formal complaint, meaning it had not been given the chance to respond. This is therefore not something the Ombudsman can investigate further. The resident should consider making a new complaint to the landlord regarding any day to day repair reports that have not been responded to appropriately.
  6. It is also noted that the resident has contended the repairs are not being completed due to the confusion over the status of her Right to Buy application. Therefore, should the resident make a new complaint and subsequently remains unhappy with the landlord’s complaint response, this may also be an issue for the LGCSO to consider, in keeping with the findings above.