The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: Mr E complains that the Council placed his family in unsuitable accommodation. And that it proposed unsuitable responses for dealing with the mould and dampness in the property. He also complains about infestations and the conduct of contractors who visited. The Ombudsman has found some fault with the Council’s record keeping and delay. The Council has agreed to our recommendations.
The complaint
The complainant, whom I shall refer to as Mr E, complains that: the Council placed him and his family in temporary accommodation that was not fit for human habitation; the Council did not take effective action to deal with mould and condensation. Its suggestions for dealing with the issue were not suitable; the Council suggested they move to a hotel while it carried out treatment work. But it was not safe for a clinically vulnerable person in their household to move during the pandemic; a Council officer said he would refer them to an energy efficiency organisation, but this did not happen; the Council did not take effective action to deal with infestations of rats and cockroaches; workmen from a Council contractor visited and were abusive towards him. The Council has not acted on this and not apologised. Instead it has said he was abusive; the Council has sought to cover up the fact an officer working for it had offensive material on his publicly visible social media; the response to his complaints were delayed.
What I have investigated I have investigated Mr E’s complaints, apart from the complaint about the officer’s social media content. The end of the statement explains why I have not investigated that issue.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
We investigate complaints of injustice caused by ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. I have used the word fault to refer to these. We consider whether there was fault in the way an organisation made its decision. If there was no fault in the decision making, we cannot question the outcome. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended) We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint. I refer to this as ‘injustice’. If there has been fault which has caused an injustice, we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended) We cannot investigate a complaint if it is about a personnel issue. (Local Government Act 1974, Schedule 5/5a, paragraph 4, as amended) If we are satisfied with an organisation’s actions or proposed actions, we can complete our investigation and issue a decision statement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 30(1B) and 34H(i), as amended)
How I considered this complaint
I considered Mr E’s complaint to the Ombudsman. I also considered the documents described later in this statement, which the Council sent me. I sent my draft decision to Mr E and the Council and considered their responses.
What I found
Legal and administrative background Temporary accommodation The Courts have determined a minimum standard of suitability for housing councils offer as temporary accommodation (when someone is homeless). But that minimum standard is a modest one. (R v Brent London Borough Council ex p Omar (1991)) A council does not have to carry out a full inspection before letting a property. It can decide whether accommodation is suitable, based on any evidence it has.
COVID-19 During the pandemic, the Ombudsman published guidance: “Good Administrative Practice during the response to COVID 19”. This guidance noted that, during the crisis, council resources would be stretched and often redeployed. It noted council responses might look different to those we would normally expect. And that emergency working would cause backlogs in many services that became lower priority during the emergency.
What happened In July 2020 Mr E and his family moved to a flat the Council arranged as temporary accommodation. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic and the lockdown restrictions, the Council could not carry out its usual visit after Mr E moved in. Instead, a Council officer spoke to Mr E. The record of that conversation says Mr E said he was happy with the property.
Mould and condensation In mid-November Mr E told the Council the flat had developed black mould and bad condensation problems. A Council surveyor inspected at the end of the month. He ordered repairs to deal with the mould.
In early December the surveyor emailed the Council’s maintenance team asking it to: refer Mr E to an energy efficiency organisation; send Mr E an email/letter and leaflet about condensation management and advice. The surveyor asked for a copy of this contact for his records. Mr E says he did not get this letter and there was no copy in the records the Council sent me; schedule some works, including mould wash, paint and fitting fans.
In mid-December 2020, the Council’s contractor visited to carry out the mould works. Mr E refused entry: he said the chemical in the treatment it was proposing to use would be harmful to his family’s health. He asked instead for the Council to move his family while the works were carried out.
In January 2021 the Council asked an outside company to survey the property. Its report recommended installing a ventilation system and mould treatment.
Later in January, Mr E contacted the Council: asking to complain about a suggestion from the surveyor that the mould and damp was caused by their lifestyle; advising the recommendation of installing a fan was not acceptable to them, unless the landlord met the cost of running it.
The Council also arranged a hotel for Mr E’s family to move to for three days, to allow it to carry out the mould treatment works. The Council’s response to my enquiries says it would have managed this in line with the COVID-19 lockdown restrictions the government had put in place earlier in January. Mr E says his family refused to move out of the flat to allow the works. He says there is a clinically vulnerable person in their household. So this was not a suitable option during the COVID-19 lockdown.
The Council moved Mr E to new accommodation at the end of March 2021.
Rats and Cockroaches The Council’s responses to Mr E’s complaints said: in November 2020 Mr E first raised, with its housing department, an issue with cockroaches in the flat. “This should have been reported to Environmental Health Pest Control to follow up and this is in your tenancy agreement and you would have been advised of this”; Mr E mentioned an infestation of rats in a 28 February 2021 email; following referral to Environmental Health Pest Control, the surveyor raised an order on 8 March. The contractors left the property when they visited on 10 March, as Mr E was abusive. But the works were completed after Mr E moved.
“The Council was addressing this issue [of the rats] by blocking holes and advising residents about removing sources of food for them.”
I asked the Council for the records of its Pest Control Team. It advised it did not have any records of works at Mr E’s address.
Workmen Over several days in the spring of 2021, staff of the Council’s contractor visited the accommodation block to carry out works to drains and to deal with the reports of a rat infestation. In a couple of these visits, Mr E says he spoke to the workmen about the work they were carrying out. Mr E says one of the workmen swore at him.
In response to Mr E’s complaint, the Council says the contractor said Mr E had been abusive to the contractor (see paragraph 19).
I asked the Council about this, as part of my enquiries. The information it sent suggested, at the time, it had not escalated Mr E’s concerns about the workmen to the contractor. It says it did not do this, as there was no evidence, and it viewed Mr E’s allegations as malicious.
In November 2021 the Council wrote to Mr E in response to contact from him. It apologised on behalf of its contractors “…for any rude behaviour”. It said it was discussing the matter with managers and the contractor. The Council has sent me contact it made with the contractor, setting out the customer care standards it expected.
The Council contacted the contractor again in June 2022, responding to my enquiries. Its contractor denied Mr E’s allegations. It says, at the time, it had reported Mr E as rude and abusive. It had referred Mr E to the Housing Ombudsman if he wanted to take his complaint further.
Mr E’s complaints and the Ombudsman’s enquires to the Council Key dates in Mr E’s complaints to the Council are: Mr E complained to the Council on 10 March 2021; the Council provided its complaint response on 30 April; Mr E asked to escalate this complaint. The Council did not provide its response until 16 August. It apologised for the delay. The response did not uphold Mr E’s complaint. It referred him to the Housing Ombudsman; Mr E was in further contact with the Council about issues relating to his complaint for the rest of 2021.
Mr E says that, in December 2021, he complained to the Housing Ombudsman. It took several months to advise him that his complaint should be made to this Ombudsman.
I made enquiries. The Council delayed providing a full response: its first response did not address all the enquiries I made. It also delayed responding to my draft decision.
Was there fault by the Council?
The Council placed Mr E’s family in unsuitable accommodation I can understand Mr E’s frustration about the mould growth and condensation in the property. But when he moved in, there was no sign of mould growth; suggesting that, at the least, there had been some corrective works before the flat was let. Mr E told the Council officer he was happy with the flat. So, on the evidence available to me, I cannot say the flat was unsuitable when Mr E and his family moved there.
Actions to deal with mould and condensation and the suggested hotel move The Council provided a reasonable response to the mould and condensation problems Mr E reported. It: sent its own surveyor to inspect the property; ordered a set of works to deal with the mould; asked an independent company to survey the property in response to Mr E’s concerns; agreed to Mr E’s request to arrange accommodation for his family to move to while its contractors carried out works to the flat; agreed to install a ventilation system recommended by the independent surveyors; commissioned a damp survey in response to Mr E’s concerns.
Mr E had reasons for refusing some of these options. And the COVID-19 pandemic meant that alternatives that would normally be available were not. But my the Council’s response to Mr E’s concerns were reasonable. I see no evidence of fault.
The referral to the energy efficiency organisation The Council has sent me evidence a Council officer asked another part of the Council to make this referral. But the Council has not sent me evidence this referral was actually made. Mr E says he never heard from the organisation.
In response to my draft decision, the Council said it did not agree with this finding because: The information was in the public domain; and Its role on this was advisory.
But the Council’s officer had advised Mr E he would make this referral and asked for it to happen. Irrespective of the points the Council’s make, that was fault.
The pest control action The Council’s responses to Mr E’s complaints detail some contacts about pest control. Yet when I asked the Council for its records of its Pest Control Team about Mr E’s address it advised it did not have any. This lack of records was fault.
The actions of the staff of the Council’s contractor staff I recognise that Mr E had first-hand experience of dealing with the contractors as the events in his complaint unfolded. But there is a conflict in evidence about what happened during the conversations Mr E had with the contractor’s staff. In the absence of documentary evidence, I cannot reconcile the conflicting accounts of what happened.
But this task has been made more difficult by the way the Council dealt with Mr E’s concerns. At the time the events happened, it did not ask the contractor for a response. It says that was because it believed Mr E’s reports to be malicious. While I accept that was a possible response, it has not sent me any contemporaneous record of how its officers reached that view. To not have one if fault.
Confusingly, later the Council apologised to Mr E “for any rude behaviour” by the contractor. And it advised it would be discussing this with the contractor. It is unclear what led to the change in the Council’s view.
The only record the Council has sent me of the contractor’s response was its response to my enquiries, when it denied the allegations. Again, the Council has not sent me any contemporaneous record to back up that denial.
A Council’s record keeping is a crucial part of its overall service delivery. Keeping accurate and contemporaneous records helps a council to provide an efficient and timely service and provide an audit trail of its decision making after the event. In this case, it has been difficult to address the Council’s response due to the lack of detail in the information it has sent me.
And, as the contractor is working for the Council, it equally needs to keep accurate records of its work for the Council.
So I find the Council (and its contractor) at fault here. It should be able to produce a clear audit trail of its decision making but it has not done so.
The response to the complaint was delayed.
The Council delayed responding to Mr E’s stage two complaint. And both it and its contractors wrongly signposted Mr E to the Housing Ombudsman.
The Council took an unacceptably long time to respond to my enquires and draft decision.
Overall then I find several faults in the way the Council has responded to Mr E’s complaint.
Did the faults cause an injustice To re-cap, I have found the following faults: the lack of a record of the actual referral to the energy efficiency organisation; the Council said its pest control team did not have records about attending Mr E’s property for pest control works. But this was contrary to some evidence in the Council’s complaint responses; the inadequate record keeping about Mr E’s reports of inappropriate behaviour by the Council’s contractor.
I have also found the following faults with the way the Council and its contractor responded to Mr E’s complaint: a delayed stage two response; wrongly signposting Mr E to the Housing Ombudsman, leading to a delay in Mr E’s complaint to this Ombudsman; a delay in the Council’s full response to my enquiries and draft decision.
These faults will have likely caused Mr E some stress and frustration
Agreed action
Within one month of my final decision, the Council has agreed to: write to Mr E apologising for the faults I have identified; pay Mr E £100 as a symbolic recognition of the distress the faults will have caused him.
Final decision
I uphold this complaint. The Council has agreed to my recommendations, so I have completed my investigation.
Parts of the complaint that I did not investigate The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate. One of these restrictions is that we cannot investigate personnel matters. Mr E’s complaint about an officer’s social media content is essentially a matter that would be dealt with through the Council’s internal personnel processes. So, by law, the Ombudsman cannot investigate this part of the complaint.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman