Watchdog says council is on a “long road towards improvement” following special investigation
The Housing Ombudsman has raised concerns about the content of Lewisham Council’s complaint handling improvement guidance to staff after an investigation found that the authority has handled an issue poorly in 92% of complaint cases.
The ombudsman’s report “found residents not consistently afforded respect and a poor culture within the landlord’s service. Either through tone of correspondence, a failure to prioritise repairs, provide updates on complaints or the landlord’s attitude”.
In response to the findings, the council established a Complaint Handling Improvement Plan (CHIP) with guidance for staff. However, the watchdog has said it has “some concerns about the content of these guides and whether they may make the organisation appear defensive”.
The ombudsman said that a couple of the how-to guides in the CHIP “alluded to the complainant “making up” complaints or the landlord not being at fault”.
The ombudsman’s report said: ”Within the how-to-guides on ‘investigating a complaint’ and ‘principles of effective complaint-handling’, each alludes to the complainant “making up” complaints or the landlord not being at fault. It encourages staff to keep an open mind and not to get defensive but that sometimes residents “make things up” or citing that “for most complaints, nothing went wrong, but we need to be able to evidence this”.
The ombudsman added: ”While these things may happen, setting them out at the forefront of these guides does not aid a culture of fairness and risks organisational defensiveness.”
In its learning statement, Lewisham Council said it has recruited additional staff and is “continuing to embed respectful, resident-first communication that includes awareness of vulnerabilities.”
It also said it is now completing more repairs jobs per day and that waiting times for residents contacting the landlord have “fallen significantly”.
The ombudsman heard that almost a quarter of the housing the local authority manages did not meet the Decent Homes Standard as of September 2024, compared to an average of 10.7% across London councils.
The watchdog said that a poor standard of data prevented the landlord from fully addressing its issues with decent homes, including damp and mould.
In its statement made public less than three weeks before the first phase of Awaab’s law comes into effect, Lewisham reported it had reduced open cases of damp and mould and improved its stock condition data.
It said: “A major focus is on meeting new Awaab’s Law requirements and introducing a new case management system to ensure better oversight and record-keeping.”
Richard Blakeway, Housing Ombudsman, said: “The landlord’s work to trust and rely on its data is the first step in understanding where to concentrate its efforts. Its aim of gathering intelligence on who lives in its properties should also allow it to build a better picture of its residents.
“This will allow it to create a plan of how to provide safe, comfortable housing, and be responsive to residents’ individual circumstances. It will also mean it can futureproof its service.”
Since the period covered in the report, Lewisham Council has take a survey of 83% of its stock and reduced the percentage of homes not meeting the standard to 17%. It has set a target of meeting the London local authority average by April 2026.
Before the investigation, the landlord was not using the Housing Health and Safety Rating System (HHSRS) to assess damp and mould or category one and two hazards but is doing so now.
It is also collecting up-to-date information about its residents, where it had previously relied on data from 2019.
Blakeway added: “The landlord is on a long road towards improvement. Its leadership realises the areas it needs to focus on and spoke openly about them.
“The landlord appears to have a stable management team in place that is focused on improving despite the many challenges councils face. It is going to be a challenge and will take skill to ensure the landlord is concentrating on the priority areas while not allowing other areas to suffer.”
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