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Ombudsman launches special investigation into London council after high maladministration rate
The Housing Ombudsman has launched a special investigation into Lewisham Council, which is guilty of “repeated failings”.
The watchdog said it would carry out the probe into Lewisham Council after issuing it with 16 severe maladministration findings in a year.
The local authority has a maladministration rate of 85%, rising to 90% for leaks, damp and mould.
At the same time, the ombudsman said it had not received evidence of compliance with all elements of a wider order issued last November.
As a result, the watchdog said it would “progress” to a further investigation to establish if there was any “wider failure” at the landlord.
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Richard Blakeway, the housing ombudsman, said: “For several months, we have been concerned at the repeated failings we have seen in the landlord’s complaints, particularly involving property conditions.
“We have given the landlord the opportunity to address some of these issues through our orders and will now progress to a further investigation. This will involve engaging with the landlord and its residents about some of the issues we have seen.
“Decent, safe and secure social housing has never been more important and the learning from this report will help the landlord to improve the experiences of residents.”
The watchdog will also share its findings with the Regulator of Social Housing, to which the council referred itself last year for a potential breach of the consumer standards.
In response, Lewisham Council said: “We welcome this investigation as we continue to work to improve our services for residents.
“Our housing service has been going through big changes and we know it is in need of improvement. We referred ourselves to the Regulator of Social Housing for a potential breach of its consumer standards in December 2023, and we intend to be open and transparent with both regulator and ombudsman until we satisfy their requirements.
“We have already made progress in some areas, though we still have a long way to go. Our improvement plans to tackle the issues raised in this investigation include [four] key focuses [as below].”
On repairs, the council explained it had reduced the backlog from more than 18,000 to fewer than 9,000. In the same period, it improved how many routine and emergency repairs it was completing on time, from 57% and 33% in April, to 67% and 58% in June.
On damp and mould, the council explained it was “carrying out a condition survey of all of our homes”.
“We have so far surveyed 7,500 properties, over 50% of the total. This is already enabling us to identify buildings prone to damp and mould, even where it hasn’t been reported, and plan refurbishment.”
It added: “We have recruited additional specialist damp and mould surveyors to work towards a target of performing a mould wash within 24 hours of it being reported by a resident.
“We have reduced the call waiting time at our repairs booking contact centre from 27 minutes in April to six minutes in June. We have improved our response times for repairs complaints.
“We have begun a comprehensive training programme for staff who respond to complaints, to make sure our residents always get fair, clear and polite responses.”
Inside Housing reported earlier this month that the council had a £7.5m deficit in its major works income for 2023-24 because of a “timing difference with bills due to be raised in forthcoming financial years”, which means leaseholders will have to be recharged for repairs.
Lewisham Council said: “We are upgrading the central computer program and database our staff use to manage the housing service. This will help us to make sure we don’t lose track of our residents’ requests and we get ahead of problems before they cause an inconvenience, and give our residents easier online access to our services.”
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