Blackpool Council (202406846)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202406846

Blackpool Council

18 February 2025

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

The complaint is about the landlord’s:
1. Handling of the resident’s reports of antisocial behaviour (ASB).
2. Response to the resident’s concerns about staff conduct.

Background

The resident is a secure tenant of the landlord. The property is a flat within a sheltered accommodation scheme. The landlord told this Service that the resident has physical health vulnerabilities, including asthma and a lung condition that causes significant breathing difficulties.
On 27 February 2024, the resident raised a complaint. He said the landlord:
1. Failed to appropriately deal with his reports of ASB against various neighbours.
2. Wrote him a letter and allowed the police to deliver it to his address. This made him upset and caused significant distress as the landlord knew he had just had a medical procedure. It should have posted the letter.
3. Had no empathy or understanding of how the issues affected him, despite its awareness of his medical conditions.
The landlord acknowledged the complaint on the same day. It contacted the resident again on 6 March 2024 and advised it would send a stage 1 response by 27 March 2024. It advised that it needed additional time to respond so it could gather further information.
The landlord issued its stage 1 response on 25 March 2024. It:
1. Confirmed that the resident had complained about a neighbour smoking cannabis while near, and walking past, his flat. It had spoken to the neighbour who agreed to walk an alternative route. It believed that the matter had since been resolved.
2. Said that the resident had made other reports about noise nuisance. It believed that situation had since improved, and sound recording equipment had never picked up sustained noise nuisance.
3. Explained the police had offered to deliver the letter on behalf of the landlord as a goodwill gesture. It apologised for any distress that it caused him. It was aware that the resident was due to undergo a medical procedure, but was unaware of what date it was happening.
4. Apologised if the resident felt that landlord staff lacked empathy. It confirmed that it had visited the resident several times and spoke at length about the resident’s reports.
The landlord determined that there was no evidence that it had failed to deal with the resident’s ASB appropriately. However, it would ensure that the issues with the letter delivery would not happen again. It assured the resident that it would communicate via email moving forward.
The resident escalated his complaint and provided his reasons on 10 April 2024. He said that the landlord’s ASB officer had told his neighbour to not smoke cannabis in his property, outside it or walking past the resident’s flat. However, the neighbour had ignored this request and continued to smoke near his kitchen window. This endangered his health and wellbeing due to inhaling cannabis smoke.
He also said that the ASB officer had breached General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) by handing over a letter, that contained his personal data, to someone that was not employed by it. The resident said that the ASB officer was guilty of “gross misconduct” and asked that it dismissed them. He also asked for an apology, and for the landlord to report the data breach to the police.
The landlord issued its stage 2 response on 20 May 2024. It said:
1. It understood that cannabis smoke in the vicinity of the resident’s property was a particular concern due to his health conditions.
2. Smoking cannabis inside a property was not a breach of the tenancy agreement but was a criminal matter.
3. It had spoken to the resident’s neighbour and asked them to be considerate of his needs. The resident had advised that the situation regarding the cannabis smoke had recently improved.
4. It accepted that it should not have allowed a police officer to deliver the letter. It explained that the police were offering to help, but it was not appropriate for the landlord to accept this offer given the content of the letter. It reiterated its apology for the distress and upset that it had caused.
5. It had identified ways it could improve its handling of ASB in the future, which included working with external organisations to identify best practice when dealing with ASB. It had also rolled out customer care training that all landlord staff had to attend.
The resident remains dissatisfied as he does not agree with the landlord’s statement that cannabis use is not a breach of its tenancy agreement.

Assessment and findings

Scope of investigation

The resident said during the complaints process that he believed that the landlord had breached the GDPR. While the serious nature of the resident’s concerns is noted, the Information Commissioners Office (ICO) considers complaints about data handling, compliance with the Data Protection Act and the GDPR. The resident may wish to contact the ICO. We have, however, considered the reasonableness of the landlord’s response to the concerns that were raised by the resident.
The resident said that the ASB, namely cannabis smoke, had a detrimental impact on his health. However, it is outside our remit to draw conclusions on the causation of, or liability for, impacts on health and wellbeing.
The resident may wish to seek independent legal advice regarding this aspect of his complaint. The resident may also be able to make a claim via the landlord’s liability insurance. If this is something he wishes to do, he should make enquiries with the landlord accordingly. We will, however, consider whether the landlord’s response to the reports of ASB caused any distress to the resident.
The resident has raised concerns regarding individual staff members, including his housing officer. It is outside the Ombudsman’s role to consider or comment on how a landlord should deal with identified service failings by the individual members of staff involved, in terms of any disciplinary proceedings or employment matters.
When investigating a complaint about a landlord, the Ombudsman will consider the response of the landlord as a whole and will only comment on the actions of individuals in so far as they are acting on behalf of the landlord. Therefore, if the actions of an individual member of staff give rise to a failure in service, the Ombudsman’s determination and any associated orders and recommendations would be made against the landlord rather than the individual.

ASB

We acknowledge that the incidents the resident has reported have had a significant impact on him and affected his enjoyment of his home. However, when considering complaints relating to ASB, it is not the role of the Service to reach a decision on whether ASB has occurred. Instead, our role is to consider whether the landlord has taken reasonable and appropriate steps to respond to the resident’s reports. This report will therefore assess whether the landlord has acted in accordance with its policies and procedures and acted in a manner that is fair and reasonable in all of the circumstances.
The Housing Act 1996, as amended by the ASB Crime and Policing Act 2014, defines ASB as:
1. conduct that has caused, or is likely to cause, harassment, alarm or distress to any person.
2. conduct capable of causing nuisance or annoyance to a person in relation to that person’s occupation of residential premises.
3. conduct capable of causing housing-related nuisance or annoyance to any person.
The landlord’s ASB policy outlines that ASB can include its residents dealing or taking drugs.
The landlord’s tenancy agreement says that residents are responsible for their behaviour in their home, surrounding land and in the local area around their homes. Clause 8.2 in the agreement states that residents and any other person living in or visiting a property must not take part in the consumption or possession of illegal substances.
When ASB is reported by a resident, a landlord has a duty to undertake a proportionate investigation to establish whether ASB is occurring, and if so the nature and extent of the ASB. To undertake a thorough investigation, the landlord is expected to engage with the resident. Likewise, a landlord has a duty to engage with the alleged perpetrator, in an effort to resolve the issues.
The landlord took appropriate steps to investigate the resident’s reports of cannabis use. It spoke to the neighbour, provided advice and engaged with the police occasions. While the neighbour denied any cannabis use, the landlord warned the neighbour that they could face tenancy enforcement action if any visitors were found to be smoking cannabis in and around the property. This was reasonable.
The resident sent photographs and videos to the landlord, that he believed evidenced the neighbour using cannabis. The landlord reviewed them, which was reasonable. However, this was not sufficient evidence for the landlord to take any action against the neighbour. This is because the landlord could not definitively prove that the neighbour was engaging in behaviours that breached his tenancy agreement. It explained this to the resident, which appropriately managed his expectations.
The Ombudsman appreciates that the resident feels that the neighbour in question was responsible for the cannabis smell and does not dispute that there may well have been a regular smell of cannabis which was causing him distress. However, the landlord can only act based on the evidence available to it.
Nevertheless, the landlord said in its stage 2 response that cannabis use was not a breach of the neighbour’s tenancy. This was inappropriate as the tenancy agreement clearly outlines that residents and their visitors must not participate in drug use. While there is no evidence that the landlord had enough evidence to take tenancy enforcement action against the neighbour in the circumstances, this statement was inevitably frustrating for the resident given it was a direct contradiction from the conditions in the tenancy agreement. This caused avoidable confusion.
The landlord wrote to the resident in August 2024 and explained that to take action against a tenant under that clause, it needs sufficient evidence that illegal activity had taken place beyond a report. The evidence would also need to be sufficient to obtain a criminal conviction. In this case, the landlord said that the appropriate route to resolve the issue was to utilise its ASB team as there was no prospect of obtaining a criminal conviction for recreational drug use by a visitor to the property.
While this explanation was reasonable, the landlord should have provided this clarity during the complaints process. That it did not was a failing. Given the failings identified by this investigation, we have found service failure in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of ASB.

Staff conduct

Where a resident reports inappropriate behaviour from a member of the landlord’s staff, it would be expected to take reasonable steps to verify the resident’s reports. It is expected the landlord will adequately investigate and respond to the complaint, and take proportionate action based on the information available.
When the resident raised concerns about the landlord allowing a police officer to deliver a letter to him, the landlord:
1. Sought an explanation from the relevant staff.
2. Explained to the resident the reason why it made the decision at the time i.e. Accepting the offer of help from the police.
3. Acknowledged that it was inappropriate.
4. Apologised for its error and assured the resident that it would not happen again.
The above actions were fair and proportionate to acknowledge and remedy the upset and distress caused to the resident. Subsequently, there is no evidence of maladministration.

Determination

In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme, there was service failure in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of ASB.
In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme, there was no maladministration in the landlord’s response to the resident’s concerns about staff conduct.

Orders and recommendations

Orders

Within 4 weeks of the date of this report, the landlord is ordered to pay the resident £50 compensation for the frustration caused by the identified failings in its handling of the resident’s reports of ASB.
The landlord must provide evidence of compliance with the above order to this Service.