Quarter of complaint handling failure orders not complied with, says Ombudsman

The Housing Ombudsman has revealed that a quarter of the complaint handling failure orders it issued in the last three-month period were not complied with.

Published on 6 March, the quarterly complaint handling failure order report found that the Ombudsman issued 38 failure orders to 28 different landlords – a reduction from 45 orders issued in the previous quarter.

The report highlighted the landlords that received the most orders this quarter, which were Haringey Council (four orders) and Hyde Housing (three orders), Wandle Housing Association, Barking and Dagenham Council, Lewisham Council, A2Dominion Group, and Hexagon Housing Association (two orders each).

The Ombudsman revealed that Haringey Council is subject to a separate wider investigation following “concerns in its casework about leaks, damp and mould”.

The Ombudsman noted that most of the orders were issued while complaints were still within the landlord’s complaints procedure due to “unreasonable delays in accepting or progressing a complaint through its process”.

The three types of complaint handling failure order that can be issued by the Ombudsman are:

• Type 1: Issued due to the landlord’s unreasonable delays in accepting or progressing a complaint through its process.
• Type 2: Issued due to unreasonable delays in providing the Ombudsman
  information.
• Type 3: Issued where a landlord fails to comply with its membership
  obligations.

Twenty-one of the orders were issued to housing associations, 14 to local authorities and three to co-operatives, the report found.

The Ombudsman said it issued a total of three complaint handling failure orders where a landlord “failed to comply with its membership obligations”, which is the most it has issued since the orders were introduced.

The landlords who received this order were Charnwood Borough Council, Argyle Street Housing Cooperative, as well as Haringey Council for failing to comply with the orders to provide information to the Ombudsman.

Richard Blakeway, Housing Ombudsman, said: “I recognise the pressures that complaint handling teams are under, yet it is disappointing for six landlords not to comply with these orders and three landlords to receive orders for failing to meet obligations under the Scheme.

“During challenging times, complaints matter even more and should be used as a tool to effectively respond to the issues the organisation faces. Good complaint handling should not be something marginalised because of other pressures.

“It is important for landlords who have received one of these orders to consider what steps they should take to strengthen their complaint handling procedures. This includes ensuring the complaints team has the resources and cooperation within the organisation to get issues resolved, without the intervention of the Ombudsman.”