Spotlight on data: poor record-keeping ‘ubiquitous’ in sector and causing ‘daily detriment’ to residents

Case studies

The Spotlight report includes several case studies, showing the impact of poor knowledge and information management on tenants. 

One resident endured leaks for eight years because their landlord did not have a system to record tenant information. Each of the 15 times he called his landlord, he had to repeat the entire situation. 

It took four years to resolve one resident’s repairs. Problems with her doors meant she lived with severe draught, leaks and issues with vermin. She had to keep her heating on constantly and her finances and physical and mental health were affected. 

The landlord also said the resident had failed to grant access for works, repeatedly blaming her for delays, but had no evidence of this. The ombudsman found service failure in both the handling of the repair request and the resident’s complaint.

The resident with two autistic children had explained to her landlord that she would need advance notice of any visit from a contractor. She said the presence of an unexpected stranger would “overwhelm her children and cause them severe anxiety”. 

“Regardless, the landlord sent a contractor to the property without notice and consequently was not let in. This was then recorded by the landlord as ‘refused access’, despite it being the landlord’s fault that access was not permitted,” the report said.

In another case, poor information-sharing between a landlord and a contractor led to a resident taking 14 days of unpaid leave waiting for appointments that workers failed to attend. 

“The landlord’s repairs record provided to us during our investigation evidenced when jobs were raised, their target dates and whether a job was closed or cancelled. They did not, however, record the dates of any appointments, note when operatives could not gain access, or whether a job was successfully completed.

“We found maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the repairs and its complaints handling,” the ombudsman said.

The watchdog said it often sees cases where ‘refused access’ has been recorded against a repair report with “no analysis” of why access was being refused “or indeed if it was really being refused”, even when the resident expressly challenged the claims that they had refused access. 

The report also highlights cases of landlords having the relevant data, but failing to act on it. 

In one case, a communal boiler repeatedly failed whenever there was a power outage. The contractor made a written recommendation for a part to be repaired, but the landlord did not act on this recommendation and continued to rely on a technician attending and restarting the boiler whenever the power went out. 

“Its lack of action on what it knew meant all the residents in the block repeatedly lost heating and hot water during winter months,” the ombudsman said. 

In another case, a resident expressly flagged that her front door was a fire door and the repair needed was specific to the legal requirements of a fire door. The landlord sent a general contractor who confirmed back what was already known – it needed a specialist fire door contractor. 

“This lack of due diligence calls into question the landlord’s approach to managing fire risk. An apparent lack of knowledge in relation to fire safety measures, and the lack of urgency given to the repair, is concerning in the context of the Grenfell tragedy – the flat was on the 14th floor,” the watchdog said.

Vulnerabilities

During its investigations, the ombudsman “repeatedly” found that residents’ vulnerabilities were not appropriately recorded. This was even when the landlord had been advised multiple times and the procedures explicitly stated that vulnerabilities would form part of the decision-making process. 

“In the absence of that information, wrong decisions were made, those most in need were not prioritised and residents were treated insensitively,” according to the report. 

As a result, residents were left without usable bathroom facilities for more than a year, communication requirements were ignored, and residents faced unfair court action. 

One resident, who had multiple health problems and disabilities, required a toilet with a disabled pan height and accessible taps. She reported problems with her kitchen and bathroom taps and a broken toilet flush handle. 

The landlord eventually installed a new toilet, but it did not have a disabled pan height. Her essential repairs took nearly 14 months.

“We found service failure in the landlord’s handling of the repairs, the conduct of its staff, and the lack of consideration of her vulnerability,” the ombudsman said. 

The report also highlighted repeated problems with service charges – in some cases the landlord wrongly believed that the resident was not entitled to charge breakdowns. 

The ombudsman concluded: “Our call for evidence shows that landlords are aware of their shortfalls and challenges with knowledge and information management, which is reassuring. 

“What is less reassuring, however, is the lack of actions planned or taken in light of this awareness – the responses were passive and indicated an underlying fatalism that good knowledge management is outside of their control.”

Recommendations

The Housing Ombudsman makes 21 recommendations in the report, listed below. 

They include implementing a knowledge and information management strategy, defining the oversight role of governance for knowledge and information management, training staff on the Equality Act, and reviewing safeguarding policies and procedures. 

It also urged landlords to devise recording standards after it found that around half of local authorities to which it sent a Freedom of Information request could not provide full data on requests they receive. 

The Social Housing (Regulation) Bill introduced an FOI-like scheme that will apply to housing associations. Tenants will be able to apply to the Access to Information Scheme (ATIS), while the ombudsman will deal with appeals. 

If you are a landlord listed in the above tables, please feel free to send comment to grainne.cuffe@oceanmedia.co.uk

• Define the oversight role of governance for knowledge and information management

• Implement a knowledge and information management strategy

• Benchmark against other organisations’ good practice in knowledge and information management

• Review safeguarding policies and procedures

• Train staff on the requirements of the Equality Act 2010

• Review internal guidance around recording vulnerabilities

• Develop organisational key data recording standard requirements that will ensure good records that support the business and demonstrate compliance with national standards

• Make adherence to the minimum standard for knowledge and information management part of the service level agreement with third parties

• Have a clear categorisation system for ATIS/FOI requests

• Publish FAQs on websites and keep them updated

• Review existing databases for capability and capacity to record those key data requirements

• Train staff on using systems

• Ensure databases are easy to interrogate, and that the data can be extracted and used

• Schedule appropriate sensitive information reviews

• Stress-test systems prior to change

• Undertake a risk assessment regarding knowledge and information shortfalls before the change

• Proactively investigate incoming datasets during mergers as part of due diligence

• Establish clear data exception reporting processes

• Set out clear requirements of operatives before they are allowed to record an appointment as missed

• Conduct wastage analysis on missed appointments

• Implement an automated appointment reminder system

A spokesperson for Lambeth Council said: “Lambeth has more than 33,000 council homes and our priority is ensuring all of these are safe and well-maintained for our tenants. 

“We have invested hundreds of millions of pounds in improving our council homes and estates, and in making improvements to the day-to-day delivery of repairs and maintenance work.

“But we know that managing information is also vital to providing the best service possible to our residents, and we apologise for any cases where record-keeping has dropped below our standards. 

“We have therefore worked hard – often with the Housing Ombudsman – to improve our service in this area.

“For example,  we have instituted additional training for staff and contractors and introduced a dynamic appointment system that gives full visibility and real-time updating of repair appointments. 

“Additionally, we have invested in a dedicated housing portal that now allows residents to report their repairs online and upload photographs to aid diagnosis. 

“We also have a dedicated housing database that ensures housing repair and maintenance information is securely held against uniquely-referenced properties and tenancies. 

“This has now been expanded to include planned maintenance projects so all work information – individual repairs and larger maintenance projects – is held on one system to allow for efficient management and property-specific information retrieval.

“We are continually monitoring our knowledge and information management, alongside all other parts of our service. 

“We will continue to positively engage with the ombudsman and we are committed to tackling any issues raised to ensure that we provide the best possible service for all our tenants.”

Matt Foreman, executive group director of customer services at L&Q, said: “We take every intervention by the Housing Ombudsman extremely seriously and are committed to learning from these to improve the services we provide. 

“We are already addressing the issues raised by this report through an extensive transformation programme that will improve and simplify our ways of working and transform the tools and technologies we use across L&Q. 

“This will improve data quality, and the way in which we capture and manage information to drive improved services for residents.

“At the same time, work is also underway to improve the way in which we handle complaints.

“We are actively working on improving our record keeping, introducing a new quality assurance process, and delivering improved training for all resident-facing colleagues. 

“In everything we do, we are ensuring we harness insights and learning from our residents to drive positive change.”

A Notting Hill Genesis spokesperson said: “We always seek to maintain high standards and deal with complaints promptly and effectively. 

“Any time we fall below those standards is disappointing and we have apologised to the resident affected. 

“As with any complaint we will take on board what we can learn for the future and review our internal processes to ensure we are best placed to provide the highest level of service to those living in our homes.”

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