Social landlord to apologise to resident after staff ignored and made ‘inappropriate remarks’ on noise complaint

The Housing Ombudsman has called on the chief executive of Six Town Housing, the Arms Length Management Organisation (ALMO) for Bury Council, to apologise on behalf of the landlord directly to a Manchester resident, after her noise nuisance complaints were ignored or not acted effectively on for nearly two years.

The Ombudsman said that when staff did acknowledge the complaints, the internal correspondence contained inappropriate remarks, including officers reportedly saying they “could not be bothered to add the resident’s calls to its system”.

Irrespective of officers’ views about her reports, the landlord should have treated her with respect and clearly communicated its position, the Ombudsman said.

However, the investigation found evidence that the landlord chose not to respond to the resident and closed cases without contacting her.

The landlord also failed to take into consideration the detrimental impact of consistently failing to respond over a prolonged period. Nor did it manage the resident’s expectations – the landlord did not clearly explain to her which reports were considered to constitute ASB and which ones were not.

The Ombudsman said that in one month alone, the resident filled out 16 diary sheets, but landlord records do not show these were ever reviewed.

Later, when the resident said she could not complete the diary forms due to worsening mental health, there was no evidence the landlord considered reasonable adjustments to help her.

The Ombudsman has called on Six Town Housing to pay £1,100 in compensation and review the resident’s current ASB concerns, implementing a clear action plan to address them.

The Ombudsman gave the landlord six weeks to provide clear guidance to its staff about the importance of objective record keeping and using professional language.

Richard Blakeway, Housing Ombudsman, said: “There is clear and repeated evidence of a lack professionalism by the landlord in response to its resident’s requests for help. These failings were over a prolonged period and meant the landlord failed to follow its own ASB policy and procedure.

“The result was significant distress for its resident over a long period of time. This led the resident to understandably feel victimised by her landlord.”

Blakeway highlighted the need for the social housing sector to respond to noise nuisance far more effectively, citing noise as a significant driver of complaints after disrepair. He encouraged landlords to reconsider the Ombudsman’s Spotlight report on noise nuisance and develop action plans to deal with this, especially during summer when more reports are being made.

“This case also reflects once more the continued problems that landlords are having with their recording keeping and the detrimental impact this can have on residents. Our Knowledge and Information Management report put forward 21 recommendations on how landlords can get to grips with this,” he said.

The Ombudsman also found maladministration for how the landlord handled the complaint.

In response to the report, Six Town Housing said the complaint regarding the handling of anti-social behaviour had been taken through its board governance arrangements for oversight, and this had led to a review of its processes.

The ALMO said: “We’re deeply sorry on this occasion our approach did not deliver the quality of service we would expect and that our internal processes didn’t highlight the issue sooner within the organisation.

“We are committed to learning from our mistakes, and in ensuring that errors do not reoccur.”

Six Town Housing pointed to the following actions it had taken:

• All staff have been reminded of their responsibilities in accurate record keeping, this includes complaint handling, and ensuring a customer first approach
• It had revised and refreshed its complaints handling policy and this was launched on 1 April 2023 with training for staff where necessary
• It had written to the tenant, apologising for its errors and had compensated her with £1,100
• In addition, it had offered the tenant additional tenancy support should she wish to use this service and it continues to work with her to manage any anti-social behaviour.

The Housing Ombudsman’s report into Six Town Housing was published in the same week that the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman accused councils of not doing enough to help victims of antisocial behaviour.

Harry Rodd