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Guinness Care and Support Limited (202124932)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202124932

Guinness Care and Support Limited

12 June 2023

 

Our approach

The Housing Ombudsman’s approach to investigating and determining complaints is to decide what is fair in all the circumstances of the case. This is set out in the Housing Act 1996 and the Housing Ombudsman Scheme (the Scheme). The Ombudsman considers the evidence and looks to see if there has been any ‘maladministration’, for example whether the landlord has failed to keep to the law, followed proper procedure, followed good practice or behaved in a reasonable and competent manner.

Both the resident and the landlord have submitted information to the Ombudsman and this has been carefully considered. Their accounts of what has happened are summarised below. This report is not an exhaustive description of all the events that have occurred in relation to this case, but an outline of the key issues as a background to the investigation’s findings.

The complaint

  1. The complaint is about the landlord’s response to a meeting being rearranged without providing notice to the resident.

Background

  1. The resident is a secure tenant of the landlord. He resides in a flat in a mid-rise building.
  2. The resident arranged a meeting with the landlord to discuss repair works at the property, for 1pm on 16 December 2021. The landlord changed the time of this meeting to 2pm and the resident stated that this was without any prior notice.
  3. The resident raised a complaint with the landlord, via this Service, on 21 February 2022 on the grounds that the meeting had been altered without notice. The landlord responded on 1 March 2022 and did not uphold the complaint as it felt that notice had been given, along with an explanation for the change and an apology.
  4. The resident remained dissatisfied and escalated his complaint to stage two of the landlord’s complaint procedure on 8 March 2022 requesting a further review as he felt the original investigation had not been completed professionally.
  5. The landlord responded the following day and did not uphold the complaint as it could find no errors in communication and saw that many attempts have been made by the landlord staff to keep the resident informed of the change.
  6. The resident remained dissatisfied and escalated his complaint to the Ombudsman on 21 March 2022.

Assessment and findings

  1. The resident had previously raised repairs requests with the landlord and was being supported to progress this by a local councillor. In an effort to resolve this, it had been agreed that a meeting should take place between the landlord, resident and councillor to discuss the repairs required and an action plan to move the works forward.
  2. Originally the landlord offered an appointment on 9 or 16 December 2021 at 1pm. The landlord did not receive a reply to this offer so sent a further email two weeks later on 2 December 2021 confirming the appointment but at a later time of 2pm.
  3. The resident queried the change of time on 6 December 2021 and the landlord confirmed that the meeting would need to take place at 2pm due to staff availability. The landlord apologised for the change in timing and for not being clearer in its previous email. The Ombudsman finds this was reasonable in the circumstances. The following day, the resident informed the landlord that 2pm was not a suitable time for him or the counsellor to meet.
  4. As the resident was not available, the landlord attempted to change the appointment back to the original 1pm time, having made staff available. The landlord contacted the resident on 13 December 2021 to ask if this would be suitable for him as well. As no reply was received, the landlord contacted the resident the day before the meeting was due to take place to ask if he was available. The resident stated he was not available the following day.
  5. Overall, in the evidence seen by this Service there is evidence that the landlord updated the resident about the change of time, explained the reason for this change and apologised. The communication with the resident was several days prior to the meeting and there is evidence of multiple contacts from the landlord. Whilst it is appreciated that the change may have been inconvenient for the resident, as he later confirmed he was not available at any time on the day the appointment was scheduled for, including the originally scheduled time the landlord’s apology for not being clear and its communication in offering a further appointment was fair in all the circumstance. For this reason, there has been no maladministration in the landlord’s handling of this appointment booking.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the housing ombudsman scheme there has been no maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the rearranged meeting.