‘Deeply concerning’: Housing watchdog takes swipe at council for ‘high maladministration’ when handling complaints

Hackney Service Centre. Photograph: Julia Gregory

Hackney Council has been urged to improve the way it handles complaints about its homes by a national watchdog.

The Housing Ombudsman said that in 36 per cent of the cases it has taken up, it has found the council guilty of maladministration.

This means the council “failed to do something, has done something it shouldn’t have, or, in the Ombudsman’s opinion, has delayed unreasonably”.

The watchdog found that there was partial maladministration in a further 28 per cent of the cases brought to it by residents.

The council has been ordered to pay out hundreds of pounds in compensation.

Problems include the way it dealt with leaks, faulty boilers, noise and anti-social behaviour.

The Ombudsman has highlighted concerns about the way 115 social landlords, including Hackney Council, handled complaints in the last year.

Investigators looked into five or more complaints from each of these landlords.

Housing Ombudsman Richard Blakeway. Photograph: Housing Ombudsman

Ombudsman Richard Blakeway said: “A positive complaints-handling culture remains vital.”

He said: “It is deeply concerning that a small proportion of landlords have excessively high maladministration rates.

“These landlords in particular should identify the areas where service failure occurs most and address any common causes.

“Demonstrating change and service improvement will be essential for ensuring trust with residents.”

Blakeway urged landlords including Hackney to review rulings and learn from them.

In one case, damage caused by leaks from a flat above took eight months to repair. Despite the delays caused by the pandemic, the Ombudsman said this was too long.

In another case upheld by the watchdog, a disabled mother and daughter reported two years of problems with heating and hot water. They had to resort to boiling a kettle when they wanted to have a wash.

Overall, the Ombudsman looked at 25 cases from residents in the council’s 21,700 homes, and said there was no maladministration in four of them.

Mediation helped sort out the problems in one case, and the council made reasonable redress to put things right in another. A further four fell outside of the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction.

A Hackney Council spokesman said: “Our ambition is to ensure all of our tenants receive an excellent service. While we have made strides over the last year towards this, following the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic and the criminal cyber attack, we know we are not where we want to be as a service.”

He added: “While compared to many other councils across the country our percentage number of maladministration findings from the Ombudsman is lower, we know this is of little comfort to our residents. One case is one case too many.”

The council said just one per cent of complaints have been referred to the Ombudsman, which will only investigate if residents have taken a complaint to the council first and are unhappy with the response.

The Town Hall spokesman said: “We always look to learn from any complaint to identify potential common themes and where things could have been done differently to try and ensure the same issues do not happen again.”

The council has cleared the repairs backlog that built up over the pandemic, expanded its repairs team, and is looking at ways to resolve problems so residents do not feel they need to hire a lawyer or go to the Ombudsman.

After the death of a toddler in Rochdale from respiratory problems caused by mould in his housing association home, Hackney has announced tougher steps to deal with mould and damp.

The council said customer satisfaction in its work has increased from 59.5 per cent last December to 66 per cent this October.