Industry News
Ombudsman issues special report on Birmingham City Council after wider investigation finds fundamental failures
T
he Housing Ombudsman has issued a special report on Birmingham City Council aſter concerns about the landlord’s
complaint handling and compensation, which have led to a breakdown in trust among tenants. England’s biggest council landlord with over
60,000 properties is being urged to make robust changes to its “fundamentally flawed” complaints handling in a special report that was issued following concerns about its complaint handling and compensation. Te Ombudsman used its systemic powers to
conduct an investigation that was initiated by a case where it found severe maladministration for delays in repairing an extensive water leak that caused damage to a resident’s property. Te landlord failed to offer any compensation
for the distress and inconvenience caused to the resident, in contravention of the Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code. Other investigated cases had lasted for upto 10 years and involved multiple disrepair claims. Te Ombudsman ordered the council to pay £7,500 compensation in 14 cases. Te special report is based on complaints
made to Birmingham City Council that were brought to the Ombudsman for investigation over a six-month period from March 2022. In all it made 25 findings across these cases and found maladministration in 24 of them, including five findings of severe maladministration – representing a maladministration rate of 96%. Te Ombudsman identified four key themes and
set out a series of recommendations, as follows: • Repairs: Te aims of the landlord’s repairs policy were not met in practice, and residents had to make multiple attempts to get repairs resolved, oſten over a prolonged period. Te report’s recommendations focus on how the landlord can improve triaging repairs requests, reviewing repairs progress with contractors, and taking a proactive approach to repairs;
• Record keeping: Te landlord’s response to repair requests and complaints showed the impact of poor record keeping. Te landlord had no framework in place for the record keeping and the expectations on its staff and contractors. Tis is a significant weakness in the landlord’s approach and the cause of repeated service failure. Recommendations included developing a framework and an action plan to ensure better external and cross-departmental communications;
• Complaint handling: Te landlord’s complaints policy failed to comply with many of the
Birmingham City Council is the largest local authority social housing landlord in England with over 60,000 homes and carries out over 250,000 repairs per year
requirements of the Complaint Handling Code, meaning there was little chance of individual complaints being handled appropriately. Te report recommended the landlord update its complaint process to comply with the Code and then self-assess against it to detail how it will tackle cases of non-compliance; and
• Compensation: Te landlord’s complaints policy did not allow for compensation to be paid for distress, inconvenience, time and trouble. It also said it could not make payments where the landlord decided there was no liability, which is entirely false. In one case the landlord initially refused to pay a financial remedy direct to the resident, instead wishing to offset it against rent arrears. Te Ombudsman’s guidance on remedies is clear that compensation awarded by this Service should not be offset against arrears. Te report recommends a new policy should be created so that a resident does not have to pursue a separate compensation claim.
Te council engaged with the investigation, accepted it got things wrong and needed to improve. It has started acting on orders from the Ombudsman, has a detailed action and there will be regular meetings to ensure compliance with the recommendations. Richard Blakeway, Housing Ombudsman, said:
“Our wider investigation revealed the landlord’s current approach to handling complaints is
fundamentally flawed. At every point residents are met with increasing challenge to get the landlord to put things right, while the lack of adequate policies, procedures and governance combined with limited learning from these issues meant the landlord repeats the same mistakes.” “Tis has oſten led to a collapse in trust between
residents and the landlord. Some residents faced living for years in homes that required repair, making repeated attempts to get the landlord and its contractors to act decisively. In one case the resident made repeated disrepair claims for over 10 years.” He added that the investigation found residents
were oſten refused a rightful remedy and there was limited evidence of learning from complaints, with procedures remaining unchanged until the Ombudsman became involved. Te Ombudsman said Birmingham is not alone
in facing these challenges, and there are lessons for the wider sector from his report. He continues to see cases that involve these fundamental issues which cut across every aspect of a resident’s interaction with a landlord. Birmingham City Council is the largest local
authority social housing landlord in England with over 60,000 homes and carries out over 250,000 repairs per year. As a result of performance issues, it terminated a failing repairs contract in March 2022 and is working with it repairs contractors to develop process improvements to avoid future service failures.
www.housingmmonline.co.uk | HMMFebruary/March 2023 | 9
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