Calls for improved complaint handling when dealing with Arun council housing tenants

Only five Housing Ombudsman complaints have been made against Arun District Council in the past year but they all highlighted the need for improved complaint handling.

The Housing Ombudsman handles complaints from tenants and determines if landlords followed proper procedure.

Between June 2021 and April 2022 the Council was ordered to pay £1,250 in compensation, in some cases paying out more to replace damaged items.

The ombudsman found ‘service failures’ in three of the five complaints against ADC. In one case the ombudsman found maladministration but no maladministration was found in the remaining complaint.

One resident, who complained in January 2022, felt she had ‘lost six years of her life’ and claimed she ‘lived out of her car even in lockdown’ due to ‘unbearable noise’ in her flat.

When noise monitoring equipment was installed at the woman’s flat a ‘remarkably high’ volume of recordings was made and Environmental Health concluded that there was ‘almost constant noise’ from above.

The watchdog found maladministration by the council which paid out £600 to the woman as it failed to take appropriate action following her complaints.

The Housing and Wellbeing Committee on Tuesday (6 December) heard that most of the complaints related to delayed repairs.

Gill Madeley (Con, Felpham West) asked: “Are we satisfied [the contractors] are doing a good job?”

Head of housing Moh Hussein said this was under ‘constant review’ but added that it is ultimately the council’s responsibility to ensure its contractors are delivering.

Council leader Shaun Gunner (Con, Rustington East) said: “It is worth bearing in mind that this is five complaints amongst 3,500 of our housing stock.

“I’m not concerned that this is an extraordinarily high number of complaints. However, there are some clear patterns in here. You can’t help but have some sympathy with these residents.

“Actually, the repair jobs were dealt with. The issue is generally the communications on that journey to get the repair done were not great.”

Mr Hussein said the council had complied with all orders made by the Housing Ombudsman. Since then, it has updated its compensation policy and given extra training to staff, among other actions.

Ombudsman’s findings will now be reported to the committee annually.