Agenda item

The Assistant Director of Environmental and Housing Property Services presented the Housing Ombudsman’s Findings Report in respect of case 202417927. This related to a complaint that had been submitted to the Housing Ombudsman by a local resident.

The purpose of the report was to learn lessons from the Housing Ombudsman’s findings when investigating this complaint.  This had concluded that there had been maladministration at the Council in respect of the following areas:

·             The resident’s reports of damp and mould in the property.

·             The installation and maintenance of aids and adaptations.

·             The resident’s reports of structural problems with the balcony wall.

·             The resident’s reports of a leak to the communal entrance.

The Housing Ombudsman had identified issues with poor record keeping at the Council as well as in respect of how staff worked with people who had vulnerabilities.  Staff required training in order to provide appropriate support to residents with different vulnerabilities.  Issues had also been identified with complaint handling at the Council, with an emphasis having been placed on the need for staff to have empathy when working with residents.  Officers were working through the Housing Ombudsman’s findings with a view to identifying the most appropriate action to be taken to prevent similar issues from occurring in the future. 

There was a need for the Council to be open and transparent in acknowledging that mistakes had been made and to highlight that action was being taken to address the issues that had been identified by the Housing Ombudsman.  In addition, the authority needed to improve arrangements for reporting back to residents when complaints were received.

After the report had been delivered, Members discussed the Housing Ombudsman’s findings and in doing so expressed disappointment that the issues that had been identified had occurred.  Members acknowledged that the Council had failed the resident on this occasion and that lessons needed to be learned in order to ensure that other residents did not have similar experiences in the future.

During consideration of this item, Members noted that the Overview and Scrutiny Committee had pre-scrutinised this report at a meeting held on 1^st September 2025.  The Overview and Scrutiny Committee had discussed the findings in the report in some detail and there had been robust debate and challenge, which was welcomed by the Executive Committee.  Members of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee had suggested that it might be helpful for the Council to recruit a case worker, or multiple case workers.  Executive Committee Members suggested that this could involve recruiting family liaison case workers to help address issues when they were reported to the authority at a much earlier stage.  In addition, the potential to work in partnership with other organisations to recruit these case workers as multi-agency staff was highlighted for consideration.

The role of staff in handling complaints and responding to initial requests for help was discussed.  Members expressed concerns that the issues identified by the Housing Ombudsman appeared to indicate that there were cultural issues amongst staff in the Housing department that needed to be addressed.  Members commented that residents should be the Council’s focus, as the authority’s customers but unfortunately in this case, the customer had been failed.  To address these cultural issues, Members commented that there needed to be greater engagement with and empowerment of Council tenants.

Reference was made to the potential for the Council to make better use of available data when training staff on how to manage different situations and to respond to residents’ queries and complaints.  The suggestion was made that patterns might emerge in the data that could assist staff in assessing the issues that were reported and how best to respond.

RESOLVED that

1)     the findings, orders and recommendation from the Housing Ombudsman be noted; and

2)     compliance with those matters by the Council and the wider learning points be noted.