The Housing Ombudsman has launched a special investigation into a social landlord following its maladministration rate being at 89%, which is comparatively high for its size .

The ombudsman says it will engage with Wandle Housing Association’s staff and residents to understand the issues facing the organisation and recommend how it can prevent future failings from occurring.

The report will explore whether complaints are indicative of wider failure and will consider if Wandle is compliant in practice with the Complaint Handling Code.

The ombudsman says the aim of the report is to improve policies and processes that will then enable the social landlord’s staff to deliver better services for residents.

Richard Blakeway, Housing Ombudsman, said: “We are seeing a high maladministration rate with this landlord, which is of cause for concern.

“Following the investigation we will engage with the landlord and discuss our learning recommendations, and publish these in a report highlighting any issues we have identified in the cases investigated.

“Developing this report in a collaborative way with the landlord ensures the recommendations we make can be taken forwards positively, and we will continue to work with the landlord after the publication of the report to help ensure these are implemented and drive actions.”

Anne Waterhouse, Wandle’s Chief Executive, said: “We recognise that our complaint handling hasn’t been what our residents deserve and are committed to putting this right – as we’ve demonstrated in our recent complaint handling report, and residents annual report.

“We already have a project group established to look at some of the causes of our poor performance in complaint handling.

“We want to learn and improve from complaints, and look forward to working with our customers and the ombudsman to show them what we’ve started to put in place, recent changes and improvements, and listen to their ideas about where we can do more to deliver consistently good outcomes for our customers.”