The Housing Ombudsman is scrutinizing Lambeth Council’s complaint handling after finding that residents from a previously resolved case had problems return.
The Ombudsman said it would establish how the landlord had allowed the issues to resurface.
It said the landlord’s poor complaint handling included not following policies, failing to fully investigate the issues and not offering appropriate remedies.
The Ombudsman used paragraph 11 of the housing ombudsman scheme to scrutinize evidence of complaints handling, including through an in-person inspection of evidence. It was the first time these powers had been used.
Housing Ombudsman Richard Blakeway said ‘Following recent determinations, I am proposing my team engage with the landlord to establish why the service failures reoccurred in these and any other relevant cases, using paragraph 11 of our Scheme.
‘This paragraph allows us to assemble evidence, including by inspection, to ensure the landlord is taking robust steps following our recent decisions in order to make significant improvements to its complaints handling.’
A statement from Lambeth Council said: ‘We are extremely disappointed that, on this occasion, we fell below our standards, and apologise for failings experienced by this resident and acknowledge that our response to the resident’s complaint was not as helpful, considerate or timely as it should have been.
‘Lambeth has worked intensively with the Housing Ombudsman and with residents to improve the way we respond to complaints.’
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