Housing Ombudsman uses powers for first time to hold in-person inspection of evidence on complaints handling at London borough

Lambeth Council is to undergo the first Housing Ombudsman inspection into complaint handling after “concerning” recurrences of cases.

The Ombudsman service said it had acted after residents from a previously resolved case had their problems return, ultimately with an Ombudsman finding of  maladministration.

It is - for the first time - to use powers under paragraph 11 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme to scrutinise evidence of complaints handling.

The Ombudsman will evaluate evidence of Lambeth’s complaint handling, including compliance with recent orders and recommendations and previous decisions relating to service improvements.

It said the poor complaint handling that prompted the investigation had included not following policies, failing to fully investigate issues and not offering appropriate remedies.

The Ombudsman service said it had expected to see more improvement in complaint handling following a special report in February 2022.

Housing Ombudsman Richard Blakeway said: “Following recent determinations, I am proposing my team engage with the landlord to establish why the service failures reoccurred in these and any other relevant cases, using paragraph 11 of our scheme.

“This paragraph allows us assemble evidence, including by inspection, to ensure the landlord is taking robust steps following our recent decisions in order to make significant improvements to its complaints handling.

“Following this engagement, the Ombudsman may also make further recommendations for service improvement.” 

Lambeth said in a statement that it has more than 33,000 council homes and “we are extremely disappointed that, on this occasion, we fell below our standards, and apologise for failings experienced by this resident and acknowledge that our response to the resident’s complaint was not as helpful, considerate or timely as it should have been”.

The council said it had worked intensively with the Housing Ombudsman and with residents to improve complaint responses and had implemented a number of improvements.

These included the introduction of dedicated complaints officers, additional complaint handling training and Increased monitoring of agreed remedies and service commitment of works.

Mark Smulian