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Royal Borough Of Greenwich (202222456)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202222456

Royal Borough Of Greenwich

31 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. This complaint is about the landlord’s response to the resident’s concerns and complaint about its handling of:
    1. Her antisocial behaviour (ASB) reports.
    2. ASB counter-allegations about her.
    3. Her complaint.

Background and summary of events

  1. The resident is a tenant of the landlord. The landlord is a local council. The background to this complaint involves the council’s housing department and its noise team, and some of the resident’s concerns were directed at the noise team. Only the housing department is in the Ombudsman’s remit to investigate, and is referred to in this report as ‘the landlord’.
  2. The evidence shows that the resident has made several ASB reports to the landlord or noise team since at least 2020. These reports have involved issues of noise and ASB by neighbours. She sent a video to the landlord and noise team on 1 June 2021 which she said showed ASB she had experienced at the end of 2020. The landlord did not respond.
  3. In July and August 2022 the landlord corresponded with the resident in regard to ASB reports it had received about her. She responded to the allegations, and also made her own reports of ASB by neighbours. In August she provided the same video of the incident in 2020, and another video from October 2021, and asked the landlord to take action and respond.
  4. Not having had a response to her reports or videos the resident complained to the landlord in September 2022 about its inaction.
  5. The landlord sent its complaint response in October 2022. It acknowledged it had received her videos, but explained that they were provided long after the events they showed. Because of their age the landlord said it could not take action in regard to them. It asked the resident to report any future incidents as soon as possible after the event. However, it acknowledged it had not responded as it should have when she provided the videos in July and August. It apologised for its failure to do so.
  6. The resident escalated her complaint in October 2022. She complained she had received the landlord’s response several weeks after it was dated, and also that she had originally sent the 2020 video to the landlord in June 2021. She said she had received acknowledgement of receipt at the time. She complained that the landlord had then asked her again for the videos in 2022, and had not acted on them in June 2021. She also asked several questions about the landlord’s handling of ASB allegations against her in March 2022, queried why the landlord had only referred to the 2020 video in its response, and complained about its overall poor communication.
  7. The resident approached the Ombudsman in December 2022 explaining she had not had a response to her escalated complaint. We wrote to the landlord in February 2023, asking it to respond to her.
  8. The landlord sent its complaint response in March 2023. It confirmed the date its first response had been sent, and explained again why the videos provided by the resident were not ones it could act on. It also explained that the video provided by her in 2021 had not been passed to the relevant team, and therefore not acted on at the time. It apologised for that failing. It explained why and how it had dealt with ASB allegations about the resident, which had involved interviewing her in March 2022, and acknowledged that it had not provided ASB updates as often as it should have. It clarified how the resident should provide her ASB reports in future, and apologised for the delay issuing its final complaint response. It referred the resident to the Ombudsman if she remained dissatisfied.
  9. The resident brought her complaint to the Ombudsman. She remained dissatisfied with the landlord’s handling of the videos, and the lack of action in response to them. She said she believed the landlord was treating her ASB reports less seriously than the ones being made against her, and that its complaint responses had been excessively delayed.


Assessment and findings

Investigation scope

  1. There are time limits for complaints brought to the Ombudsman. The Scheme states that the Ombudsman may not investigate complaints which were not formally made to the landlord within a reasonable period of the incidents being complained about. At the time of this complaint, a reasonable period was considered to be 6 months.
  2. The resident complained in October 2022 that the landlord had not responded to her 2021 ASB reports, and the video evidence she provided. She has made the same complaint to the Ombudsman.
  3. Given that the ASB reports were made in early to mid-2021, and not complained about until October 2022, too much time had elapsed for the Ombudsman to consider a complaint about the landlord’s action, or inaction in response to them. The resident would have been aware that she had not had a response much earlier than October 2022, and had the opportunity to make a complaint in a reasonable timeframe.
  4. While this investigation will not consider the landlord’s actions or lack of action in 2021, it will consider the reasonableness of the landlord’s response to the matter when it became aware of it in late 2022.
  5. As was explained above, the council’s noise team is not in the Ombudsman’s remit to investigate. Complaints about the council’s non-housing management functions should be made to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman. Their contact details can be found online.

The landlord’s response to the resident’s concerns about its handling of her ASB reports

  1. The evidence provided by the resident confirms she sent the landlord’s chief executive and the council’s noise team her ASB report and 2020 video in June 2021. She included copies of those emails with her escalated complaint to the landlord in 2022.
  2. There is no indication of a response from the landlord in 2021. In its complaint response in March 2023 the landlord explained that while the 2020 video (and presumably the ASB report with it) had been received, it had not been passed to the correct department to address. It apologised, and asked the resident to use the appropriate email address to report future noise nuisance or ASB.
  3. The Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code 2022 (the Code) sets out how a landlord should approach remedying its mistakes: “Where something has gone wrong a landlord must acknowledge this and set out the actions it has already taken, or intends to take, to put things right.” Suggested remedies can include acknowledging errors, providing an explanation, apologising, changing policies or procedures, or compensation.
  4. In this case the resident had not used the most appropriate channels to make her ASB report in 2021, and the noise officer had instructed her to make her report to her tenancy officer. The video evidence was old by the time it was originally provided to the landlord, and there is no clear evidence of the resident raising its lack of response until a year later. Conversely, she had sent it to the chief executive and would rightly have expected it would be passed to the appropriate team, ASB is a potentially serious issue, and the landlord had an overall obligation to consider and respond in good time to reports it receives.
  5. Given its significance, upon realising its error after the resident’s escalated complaint the reasonable course of action would have been for the landlord to investigate what might have gone wrong, consider any steps it could take to avoid a repeat failing, consider what the impact was, provide a clear explanation of why the mistake occurred, and consider whether compensation was due. An apology was an essential remedy, but there was more the landlord could, and should have considered doing to demonstrate it appreciated the seriousness of the matter and put things right. There is no evidence it did so. That left the complaint incompletely remedied.
  6. In her complaint to the Ombudsman the resident said the landlord had still not taken action despite the videos she had given it. However, the landlord explained in its complaint responses why the videos were too old for it to act on. It gave an example explaining why, referring to the 2020 video. It did not specifically refer to the 2021 video, but it is evident it was referring to both.
  7. A landlord can usually only act on ASB reports when they have been promptly reported to it so it can act quickly while evidence and witnesses are most readily available. If the correct team had received the 2020 video when the resident sent it in mid-2021 it would likely have been too old for it to act on, and the same applied to the 2021 video, which was given to it in August 2022. Accordingly the landlord’s explanation and conclusion were reasonable.
  8. The resident complained to the Ombudsman that the landlord had not shared the video evidence with other services, which she said meant “other services are not aware of true behaviours being carried out towards me and my son.” It is not wholly clear what is meant by this, but it is presumably partly a reference to the landlord’s comment in its final complaint response that it accepted “the video footage you submitted should have been shared amongst different services”.
  9. If so, the landlord appears to have meant that the noise team and chief executive’s office should have sent the video to the relevant ASB team, as there are no other services a landlord would usually involve in its initial ASB investigations, other than sometimes the police. The resident had already indicated at the time she emailed the video in 2021 that she had also sent similar evidence to the police. Accordingly, there is no apparent omission by the landlord in this regard.

ASB counter-allegations

  1. In her complaint to the landlord and the Ombudsman the resident said she believed the landlord was treating ASB reports about her more seriously than the reports she had made. She said she believed the landlord’s poor communication and updates were symptoms of this, as was the fact it had not taken action in response to her video evidence.
  2. In response to her complaint the landlord confirmed it had received ASB reports about the resident, and explained the actions it had taken, such as interviewing her to hear her side of things, or making enquiries of the police. It explained its conclusion that there had been no evidence found to corroborate the reports, so no further action had been taken.
  3. The landlord had an obligation to respond to ASB reports it received from the resident, as well as any it received from other tenants. This report has already determined it was a failing by the landlord not to respond to the resident’s video evidence in good time in 2021 and 2022, even if it was just to explain the age of the videos made them effectively unusable. The landlord has provided evidence confirming it also received ASB reports about the resident. That evidence was more recent, and the landlord’s enquiries and discussions with the resident about them were therefore appropriate and in line with its ASB policy and basic good practice.
  4. The landlord acknowledged it had not always updated the resident about its ASB investigations. It apologised and gave an assurance that it would improve its handling in this regard. No specific examples were given by either party, so it is not possible for this investigation to go further in determining if the landlord’s response to its failing was proportionate or not. Nonetheless, if the resident believes that the landlord continues to act poorly in how it responds to or updates her about any ASB reports she makes it will be open to her to make a new complaint to it. She can then return to the Ombudsman if she is dissatisfied with its responses. Any potential new investigation by the Service would take into account what the landlord said and promised in this case.
  5. In the circumstances of the landlord’s failure to respond to the resident’s videos and its poor communication, it is understandable she felt she was being treated less favourably. These were failings, but no evidence has been provided indicating they were caused by a specific intention to treat her differently.

The landlord’s complaint handling

  1. The resident’s first complaint was made to the landlord on 15 September 2022. Its response is dated 6 October. It is not apparent when it was sent. The resident explained she did not receive it until several weeks later, and complained the landlord had put the wrong date on the letter to obscure a delay. The landlord responded to the complaint, explaining it had found no evidence supporting her concern. No such evidence has been seen in this investigation either. As such, the date on the letter was 4 days over the landlord’s 10 day target. It was late, but not overly so, and not enough to be considered a failing.
  2. The resident escalated her complaint on 21 October 2022. The landlord has a 20 working day target to respond to an escalated complaint. Not receiving a response, the resident asked for updates in November and December, addressing her emails to the chief executive and one of the landlord’s managers, again apparently without response. She approached the Service in late December, and we asked the landlord on 21 February 2023 to respond to her.
  3. The landlord sent its final complaint response on 7 March 2023. It apologised for the delay, but gave no other explanation or remedy for it. The landlord had significantly exceeded its 20 working day target, did not provide updates to the resident, and did not respond to her chaser emails. While the Service contributed partly to the time taken, there is no indication from the landlord that it appreciated the scale of its poor handling of the escalated complaint. In the context of the resident already believing she was being treated differently, the landlord’s failure to appropriately remedy it did not do anything to change her view, as shown by her complaint to the Ombudsman.

Determination (decision)

  1. In line with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was service failure in the landlord’s response to the resident’s concerns and complaint about its handling of her ASB reports.
  2. In line with paragraph 53(b) of the Scheme the landlord has offered redress to the resident prior to investigation which, in the Ombudsman’s opinion, satisfactorily resolves the complaint about its response to her concerns and complaint about its handling of ASB counter-allegations about her.
  3. In line with paragraph 52 of the Scheme, there was maladministration in the landlord’s complaint handling.

Reasons

  1. The landlord did not acknowledge the significance of its lack of response to the resident’s ASB report in 2021. It apologised for its failing, but did not offer further remedies proportionate to the scale of the error.
  2. The landlord acknowledged some failings in its handling of ASB reports about the resident and provided appropriate remedy for them. Its handling of the reports was otherwise reasonable.
  3. The landlord failed to reasonably acknowledge and remedy the significant delay in its final complaint response, not taking account of the need for the resident to chase the matter and intervention by the Ombudsman.

Orders

  1. In light of the findings made in this report the landlord is ordered to pay the resident compensation of:
    1. £200 for its incomplete remedy to her complaint about her ASB reports.
    2. £200 for its poor complaint handling.
  2. The landlord must also write to the resident acknowledging these report findings and committing to handle any future complaints she makes about its service, or ASB reports it receives from her, in line with its complaint and ASB policies.
  3. Evidence of compliance with these orders must be provided to the Service within 4 weeks of this report.