Richard Blakeway frustrated over repeated Complaint Handling Failure Orders
The Housing Ombudsman says landlords must act on his warnings after issuing 10 landlords with multiple complaint failure orders in the first quarter of the financial year.
Richard Blakeway has written of his frustration that some landlords were issued with more than one Complaint Handling Failure Order (CFHO) between April and June.
CFHOs are issued by the ombudsman where a landlord has failed to handle complaints in-line with its statutory Complaint Handling Code and has failed to act in response to intervention.
The ombudsman said the orders are intended to be a “last resort”.
Blakeway said: “There are 10 landlords who received more than one CHFO in the last quarter and in some cases multiple times.
“In many cases these are also landlords where we have seen high maladministration rates and have had to intervene over several quarters. In some cases these landlords are now subject to regulatory intervention.
“CHFOs are issued rarely and may signal wider concerns – these warnings must be heeded to avoid unnecessary detriment to residents.”
The organisations issued with more than one CHFO in April to June are Soho Housing Association, L&Q, Haringey Council, Harrow Council, Warwick District Council, Hexagon Housing Association, A2 Dominion, Southwark Council, Newham Council and Lewisham Council. All of the social landlords mentioned have been approached for comment.
The report also showed the overall number of CHFOs issued has increased from 38 to 55 quarter-on-quarter.
In a statement, Warwick District Council said it has recently undertaken a review of its complaints policy and procedures, implementing changes across the authority to ensure that complaints are dealt with in a timely and effective manner.
Since April this year, the council has had a dedicated officer responsible for overseeing complaints across the council, and said it has complied with the orders from Housing Ombudsman determinations.
Kate Gascoigne, chief customer officer at A2Dominion said: “We treat our customer complaints very seriously and have apologised to the customers that have been affected. Both complaints relate to delays in providing information to the Ombudsman due to internal issues.
”To ensure we learn and manage our complaints better, we have recruited additional complaint case workers and implemented new systems to support our complaint handling visibility and highlight key lessons learnt. We’re also currently implementing transformation plans to improve our key service areas, such as repairs.”
A Newham Council spokesperson said: “Improving the resident experience is at the core of our Building a Fairer Newham agenda.”
They added: “Rightly our community seek support and high-quality services from the council and while we endeavour to deliver value for money and responsive services sometimes things can go wrong, or occasionally we don’t provide a service to the standards that residents expect from us.”
“We continue to strive to do better to embed a positive complaint handling culture.”
Since the Ombudsman’s complaint handling code became statutory, Newham has recruited additional officers to deal with complaints and adopted a new housing complaints policy that aligns with the code.
Despite these concerns, Blakeway said he has noted a “vast improvement” in how social landlords are handling complaints in recent years, but suggested they could take it further by using complaints to drive learning and assess their organisational culture.
The Ombudsman also cited feedback survey results showing 95% of landlords believe the Complaint Handling Code, which became mandatory in April, has helped them to foster a positive complaint handling culture, while 92% stated it has enabled them to offer a more consistent approach to handling complaints.
Blakeway said: “Good complaint handling is not just about ticking a box or meeting statutory obligations.”
He added ”While essential this is done, landlords must adopt an ethical complaint handling stance, which looks at the person behind the complaint and understands the impact the situation can have when services fall short.
“There is also the need for increased scrutiny and oversight by governing bodies are how complaints are approached.”
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