Surrey residents impacted by inadequate complaint-handling
The Ombudsman found people were not always aware who at Southern Housing they could complain to, or how they could complain to
A report on Southern Housing has found serious issues within their complaint-handling culture.
The housing provider offers rented and shared ownership homes in Surrey and across the south-east.
The Housing Ombudsman conducted the special investigation report, examining issues faced by residents.
They investigated 77 cases and made 300 recommended rectification orders.
The report finds that it was not always clear who residents could complain about issues to.
It was also unclear how they could raise a complaint, it was also unclear how the complaint was going to be handled.
These issues lead to a lack of access, and a lack of responsiveness, leading to a lack of accountability for taking action to put things right.
Southern Housing was created in 2022 by the merging of Optivo and the Southern Housing Group.
Richard Blakeway, the Housing Ombudsman for England, said handling repairs was a major issue:
“In one case there were issues around the condition of the property, which led to a local authority issuing an improvement notice, with environmental health saying they needed to be actioned by the landlord.”
“The landlord's policy on repairs wasn't always clear about the timescale in which it would handle repairs in.”
He added that another area of concern related to antisocial behaviour complaints:
“We saw some serious cases of antisocial behaviour where the landlord not necessarily assessing the impact on the household.”
“This included not necessarily doing a risk assessment, or if it did do a risk assessment, then not ensuring that there was an appropriate action plan to follow up on issues.”
The report has made a number of recommendations which Southern Housing needs to address:
“These range from ensuring that their complaints procedure is accessible, through to having clarity on when it will conduct repairs and the timescales involved, and many other things as well.”
The Ombudsman has been pleased by Southern Housing’s initial response and is hopeful of a positive outcome for the residents:
“The landlord has already started to do some work during this investigation and that's really positive.”
“I think in time residents should experience improvements ,and some of the issues that we saw in this investigation should be prevented from happening again.”