The Housing Ombudsman has published a special investigation report into the London Borough of Camden’s landlord services, finding evidence of a defensive complaints culture, with documents containing dismissive tones that run the risk of discouraging the acknowledgement of valid complaints.

The council has implemented various improvements during the investigation in key places, the ombudsman says.

The investigation was prompted by a significant volume of severe maladministration findings. In the report, the ombudsman investigated 57 individual complaints, making 124 findings of maladministration where obligations, policies or processes were not followed, with a detrimental impact on the residents involved. The ombudsman says this represents a maladministration rate of 83% during 2023-24. The ombudsman also made 275 orders on these cases to make things right for residents.

In one case, a resident with arthritis and other health needs, who relies on a service dog, experienced outages to a lift over an extensive period, with it estimated to be broken 686 days out of the 1,051 he had lived in the block. This left him having to navigate stairs multiple times daily.

The landlord did not consider a temporary move, so the resident moved himself to a wooden shack with no heating or hot water. The landlord had previously received complaints about the lift but did not learn from these to prevent the impact on the resident.  Since this determination, the landlord succeeded in finding long-term, permanent accommodation for this resident.

In another case about renovation works, a leaseholder waited 2,337 days for a response to their complaint.

The report identified three key themes and made recommendations to improve in those areas.

The Ombudsman has requested that the council provides an action plan to address the report’s recommendations and will continue to engage with it.

Richard Blakeway, Housing Ombudsman, said: “This special investigation highlights the critical importance of effective complaint handling as a fundamental aspect of providing safe and decent housing.

“The landlord has engaged positively throughout this investigation.  I welcome its new vision to create a culture that views complaints as opportunities for improvement rather than failures. These are important steps.

“The landlord needs to understand why several opportunities are missed to put things right, which may leave residents’ living in unsuitable and avoidable conditions. This includes a resident living with persistent disrepair, including damp and mould, for over 3 years, severely impacting her mental health. The issues weren’t addressed until the ombudsman intervened.

“To build trust and ensure residents’ voices are genuinely heard, comprehensive training and a strategic shift towards proactive, respectful engagement are imperative as the landlord continues to improve its services.”

In its landlord learning statement, the council said: “Our tenants and leaseholders deserve high-quality, responsive and empathetic services, and we have been investing and working hard to improve the services they receive.

“As a council we have experienced many years of under-investment from government and there is a critical shortage of affordable housing. We are pleased that report acknowledges our commitment to the long-term improvement of housing and repairs services through our established transformation programme.

“The ombudsman has also acknowledged our engagement with them and our proactive work to make key improvements throughout the investigation, and we will continue to work with them as we make further progress.

“The cases covered in the report are generally from 2022 or earlier – since then we have changed and improved many aspects of our services. We have more work to do, and we have comprehensive plans in place that will deliver further improvements. This includes developing our culture and processes around complaints, a system review of how our services respond to residents with vulnerabilities, and improved communication during the repairs service.

“We will go above and beyond the ambitions set out by the ombudsman’s recommendations and we will ensure that considerations about our residents are at the centre of our work.

“We have set up a housing and property residents panel, a complaints and oversight panel, completed a programme of intensive resident engagement, and we will continue to encourage all residents to get involved in the development of our services.”