The Housing Ombudsman has recently issued findings of severe maladministration against the Guinness Partnership, a social housing provider based throughout England. These cases highlight critical failures in providing safe and secure housing to vulnerable residents.
In one case the Ombudsman uncovered severe maladministration after the landlord failed to address a roof issue caused by bird infestation. Shockingly, the problem persisted for 21 months. The delays were exacerbated by a poor contractor changeover, and the temporary measures implemented by the landlord proved insufficient. Despite acknowledging its failures during the investigation, the landlord took an additional four months to rectify the situation.
Notably, throughout the repair process, there was no evidence that the landlord considered its obligations under the housing health and safety rating system (HHSRS). Furthermore, communication with the affected resident was sorely lacking.
Another case revealed severe maladministration in how the landlord handled repairs and damp issues. The resident and her family endured an ongoing leak that persisted for an excessive period of time. Living conditions deteriorated significantly due to the dampness and cold. Fungi even began growing in one of the bedrooms.
Richard Blakeway, Housing Ombudsman, said: “The poor condition of some homes dominates our casework, and these cases speak to many of the failings and missed opportunities we see. This includes inspections not carried out early enough or no repairs actioned afterwards, poor record keeping, as well as respecting the resident by communicating or updating them.
“Particularly concerning is that many of the issues we investigated in these cases were ongoing at the point of our decision, despite the landlord knowing that some repairs were incomplete. Our orders mean that appropriate actions have been taken and residents are now living in more habitable homes. But this is another example of the landlord missing opportunities to put things right.
“I welcome the action taken by landlords to improve services. While the landlord has stated these complaints arose in 2021, not only did many of the repairs take years to complete but some of the actions, such as repairs coming in-house, also contributed to issues in some of these cases.
“There are a significant number of cases being escalated to the Ombudsman concerning the landlord, which indicates further learning and action may be required.
“Underpinning many of the failings was also a lack of robust knowledge and information management, and we would urge the landlord and others in the sector to familiarise themselves with our Spotlight report on this topic to drive improvements for residents.”
In a statement Guinness Partnership said:
We have made significant improvements to our services since these issues arose in 2021. The service these 4 residents received was not good enough, and we are very sorry for letting them down. We have apologised to the residents for the impact our failings had on them and their families.
We promote a positive complaint-handling culture, and we aim to learn from every complaint to improve how we do things. We continually review the services we provide to ensure they are appropriate, responsive, and sensitive to the needs of all residents.
Since the period covered by the Housing Ombudsman’s investigations, we have undertaken a thorough review of the management of contractors and now deliver more of our repairs in-house, supporting much-improved service delivery.
We have restructured, retrained, and increased the resourcing of our complaints teams, continued to increase the size of our repairs team, and made significant investments in our internal systems and processes, recognising the importance of record keeping.
We recognise that we need to do better in these cases. We are committed to listening to our residents and working with the Ombudsman, using all feedback to improve.
