Housing Ombudsman finds “multiple missed opportunities” at London council after special investigation into 79% maladministration rate

May 22, 2025

The London Borough of Hackney has been warned to avoid a ‘positivity prism’ in which it overstates the impact of improvements made to its social housing stock, failing to accurately represent how those changes have affected its residents.

The warning comes from the Housing Ombudsman, after a special investigation uncovered “multiple missed opportunities to identify root causes to improve its service to residents”.

The report identified issues in numerous areas, including risk assessment and prioritisation, responding to vulnerable residents and its knowledge and information management.

The investigation was prompted by the level of maladministration and severe maladministration findings in the Ombudsman’s casework, with poor practice found in 79% of complaints.

Of these cases, 87% regarding damp and mould displayed maladministration from the council, compared to 74% in general repairs cases and 83% when handling complaints.

Key findings of the special investigation include:

Repairs

The landlord used a performance-related bonus scheme, which created an incentive to mark jobs as ‘complete’ to meet targets.
Limitations allowed repairs to be recorded as ‘complete’ or ‘refused access’ restricting accurate reporting, with around 33% of recorded repairs visits being repeats.
Repairs performance data was presented positively without highlighting the very low response rate.

Damp and mould

Despite a 5-day target to respond to damp and mould with an initial inspection, the real issue is the time taken to complete work following an investigation.
Action plans for leaks, damp and mould, and repairs lacked supporting analysis and risk assessments to guide decision making.
The Ombudsman found the landlord had “a distorted view of reality and misguided reassurance, committing resources without fully understanding whether it would address the identified issues”.

Complaint handling

In almost every complaint, the timescales to respond took longer than the timescales in its complaints process.

Knowledge and information management

The landlord was still operating without the use of a dedicated Housing Management System at the time of our investigation.
Hackney missed opportunities to fill significant data gaps by asking residents for information about themselves and their home.

The Housing Ombudsman said senior management repeatedly referred to the cyber-attack as a reason for the lack of progress, despite operational staff saying data and systems issues pre-dated the cyber-attack.

Richard Blakeway, Housing Ombudsman, said: “This investigation highlights the importance of culture within an organisation. I welcome the commitment of officers and leadership to learning and improvement through this report.

"We met officers who were often trying to deliver services with little structure, procedure, systems or data to support their work. From the evidence we have heard and seen, the good work achieved was happening despite the landlord’s structures and systems rather than because of them.

“The landlord has invested in significant resources to support and deliver its improvement programme. It has recognised the need to separate strategic and operational leadership roles to allow added time for leaders to focus on each area of work. At times the process has been rewarded rather than the outcome.”

Blakeway added: “The pressure for improvement has sometimes created a ‘positivity prism’ which has overstated changes compared to the reality experienced by residents. This could go some way to explain the root cause of the landlord’s problems. It must ensure its mindset does not prevent real learning and reflection, including from complaints, to achieve its ambitions.”

Cllr Guy Nicholson, Hackney’s Deputy Mayor and Cabinet member for Housing Management and Regeneration, said: "The council has never shied away from its duty to its tenants and residents to provide the best housing services and should it fall short, it must improve.

“The council acknowledges the Housing Ombudsman's assessment that tenants have not received the service they should be receiving from the council. On behalf of the council I apologise for this shortfall and reassure both tenants and the Housing Ombudsman that Hackney Council is fully committed to improving the service it provides as a landlord to the homes it has responsibility for.”

Cllr Nicholson added: “The Housing Ombudsman has investigated a range of cases that had affected tenants from two years ago which predated the implementation of the council's own internally led service improvement plan.

“It is heartening to note that the Housing Ombudsman recognises the commitment of housing officers in delivering services to tenants, acknowledges the council’s work to implement its service improvement plan and the introduction of a better approach to support residents with additional needs to live in their homes.

“The Housing Ombudsman also acknowledged the range of external challenges that the Council has faced in recent times which included the Covid-19 pandemic lockdowns, rising prices and the impact of maintaining an ageing housing stock which had all contributed to the shortfall in service.

“I can assure the Housing Ombudsman that all in the council will remain focused on improving the housing services it provides to its tenants."

Harry Rodd