Large landlord praised for ‘forensic and far-reaching’ approach after ombudsman review

The watchdog ordered A2Dominion to carry out a review after ruling that it failed two residents who were living with damp and mould. It also reviewed thousands of other cases.

The landlord has now published its response to the review, which revealed how “large property management patch sizes limited our ability to own the relationship with residents and resolve their issues quickly enough”.

Under its improvement programme, each property manager supports around 330 residents, compared with more than 500 previously. This change came from the findings of a pilot that began in January last year, including feedback from residents, that is being used in the wider review of A2Dominion’s neighbourhood operating model and customer experience strategy.

Other discoveries included a need to boost staff training in four areas: effective use of the repairs system; case management of planned and packaged works; contractor management; and complaints-handling.

A2Dominion said it had updated its complaints and compensation policies “to drive a positive complaint-handling culture”. The landlord said it was also “making significant changes to how complaints about repairs are managed”.

Mr Blakeway said: “This is a frank, forensic and far-reaching assessment by the landlord to identify the root causes for repeated service failings. It is a powerful report which should be read by other landlords of all sizes who may be facing similar challenges handling repairs and complaints.

“That its review was conducted by its own staff but independent of the services involved both demonstrates the strong ownership that landlord is taking and that these steps will be more than fine words and residents should experience better services.

“In particular, the report focuses on some key areas where even modest changes can effect positive change.

“I strongly welcome the landlord’s focus on culture and behaviours alongside process and systems.”

The ombudsman awarded the two residents £8,000 in compensation last autumn.

In one case, A2Dominion’s chief executive was told to apologise directly to a west London resident left in damp and mould with a pest infestation for months. In the other, the landlord left water coming into a vulnerable resident’s bedroom for more than a year.

A2Dominion said in a statement: “We would like to offer our sincere apologies to the customers who were impacted in 2017 by the issues outlined in this report, and to offer reassurance that our number-one priority is to vastly improve our services for them.

“In this instance there were significant delays in our response in terms of repairs carried out, communications with our customers and in the way we escalated issues. We have since complied with all the orders in this case.

“Full repair work has since been completed at this development and further investigation will take place to ensure that other customers have not been negatively impacted by the issues raised in this review.

“We know that some of our services have not met the standards that we or our customers expect. Many improvements are already underway as a result of our new strategy, as we continue to work closely with the Housing Ombudsman.

“Building on our existing improvement programs within repairs and complaints handling, we continue to invest in our structure, and promoting positive outcomes for customers. This includes a new approach to housing management, targeted at transforming customer experience in our tallest and most complex buildings.

“We know there are still issues we are working to address to improve our services for customers, and that’s why we are moving quickly to make wide-scale improvements.”

Over the past 10 months, A2Dominion has been undertaking a shake-up of its executive team in a bid to improve its service for residents, including appointing Karbon Homes’ chief executive, Paul Fiddaman, to its board in May.