One Housing review unearths more than 800 inaccurate records on asbestos risk

A review by One Housing following an Ombudsman investigation has found more than 800 entries of incorrect asbestos risk data.

Prompted by a severe maladministration finding, the social landlord’s review into its asbestos register deemed its risk scoring system to be inaccurate.

In some cases, several properties were recorded as ‘no-risk’ where data was missing, despite there being a possibility of asbestos. Meanwhile, other properties had been marked as ‘high-risk’, where old data had not been removed.

The former 17,000-home housing association, which was fully amalgamated into Riverside in 2023, concluded that data inconsistencies were the result of several factors, including external services being brought in-house and poor knowledge and information management.

This included new data being added without existing records being updated when moving to a new system.

The Ombudsman made a series of orders to One Housing after a tenant complained about a leak and collapsed ceiling in her and her child’s home, where repairs took 14 months and the landlord did not have accurate records about the presence of asbestos in the property.

This meant it failed to assess the condition of the asbestos and could not evidence that it considered temporarily moving the family, despite the adverse health effects associated with asbestos exposure.

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Richard Blakeway, Housing Ombudsman, said: “The ceiling collapse caused the resident considerable distress as she worried about her family’s safety given the potential asbestos risk. The landlord failed to recognise this or learn lessons about how it handled events.

“This was a significant missed opportunity as the wider review following our investigation reveals the problems with its records on asbestos were not isolated. This shows the power of learning even from just one complaint.

“This case is a reminder for landlords that when hazards and safety are present within a complaint, landlords should act quickly and inspect these thoroughly.

“It also underscores the importance of knowledge and information management, which is so often the foundation to an effective service or complaint response.”

One Housing Group joined Riverside as a subsidiary in 2021, before folding fully into Riverside from 1 April 2023. ‘One Housing’ is still used as a trading name for the part of Riverside that is managing the 17,000 former One Housing homes.

One Housing said it has since improved its approach to asbestos record keeping and services, including a review of its asbestos safety management plan. It has also produced an operational guidance document and recruited for two new administrative posts to maintain its asbestos databases.

In its learning statement, One Housing wrote: “We want to thank the Ombudsman for bringing this to our attention and welcome this report.

“Riverside merged with One Housing in April 2023 and since then Riverside has implemented their systems and processes in relation to asbestos management.

“We are very sorry for the distress caused to our customer following a leak and a collapsed ceiling and for the repair handling, asbestos record keeping, and complaint handling.

“In this case, we undertook a detailed investigation and a lessons learnt review. We revisited it six months later to make sure the key learning points were being implemented.”