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Waltham Forest Council (202406940)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202406940

Waltham Forest Council

26 November 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 about the resident’s report that the landlord arranged a meeting of the local tenants and residents association (TRA) and did not offer a facility for residents to participate online.

Determination (jurisdictional decision)

  1. What the Ombudsman can and cannot consider is called the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction. This is governed by the Scheme. When a complaint is brought to this Service, the Ombudsman 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 contacted this Service on 21 May 2024 and stated that the landlord had not offered residents the opportunity to attend a residents’ meeting online. He believed this made the meeting inaccessible to residents who were housebound. The Ombudsman conveyed the resident’s complaint to the landlord on the same day.
  2. The landlord sent a stage one reply to the resident on 6 June 2024, which focussed on a recent meeting of the council’s Varied Abilities Forum that had been held in person, without the option of resident’s participating online.
  3. The Ombudsman wrote to the landlord on 10 July 2024 and advised that the resident was dissatisfied with the stage one reply because he said the landlord had recently arranged a tenant liaison group meeting which had not been accessible online.
  4. The landlord sent its stage 2 reply on 22 July 2024 and again focussed its response on the Varied Abilities Forum.
  5. The resident advised this Service on 11 November 2024 that his complaint was not about the Varied Abilities Forum. He said it was about a meeting of the local TRA which the landlord had arranged and overseen. The resident said the landlord had not given residents the option of participating in the meeting online and therefore this made the meeting inaccessible to residents who were unable to attend in person.
  6. During a further conversation with this Service on 25 November 2024, the resident added that the meeting in question had been an inaugural meeting of the TRA arranged by the landlord and had taken place in early 2024. He said that as far as he was aware, the TRA had not held further meetings and therefore his complaint was not about any subsequent meetings that the TRA itself had arranged.

Reasons

  1. Paragraph 42.a. of the Scheme states: The Ombudsman may not consider complaints which, in the Ombudsman’s opinionare made prior to having exhausted a member’s complaints procedure, unless there is evidence of a complaint-handling failure and the Ombudsman is satisfied that the member has not taken action within a reasonable timescale”.
  2. In this case, the landlord’s complaint investigation had centred around its Varied Abilities Forum and it had not considered the TRA meeting referred to by the resident. Therefore, in the Ombudsman’s opinion, the resident’s complaint about the TRA meeting has not exhausted the landlord’s complaints process.