Birmingham City Council ‘disappointed’ after damning report on housing failings

Birmingham City Council said it was disappointed but committed to improvement after a damning report revealed how tenants were failed. The Housing Ombudsman, a national watchdog, said the authority had a high rate of maladministration, when a failure adversely affected a resident.

Earlier this year, it said it had made multiple findings of ‘severe maladministration’ against the council for how it handled leaks as well as damp and mould, plus its associated complaint handling. It particularly pointed to Birmingham City Council’s poor complaint handling when it came to a flooding incident and also how it dealt with a leak which went on for at least three years.

In one case, the Ombudsman said the council had “failed to undertake necessary damp and mould works” which the resident said impacted his health and made one room inhabitable. Now the watchdog's 2023/24 landlord performance report for the council has revealed it made 176 findings in relation to complaints it received about the authority.

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The report said 86 per cent of the findings were maladministration. Richard Blakeway, Housing Ombudsman, said such figures were another “stark reminder” of the scale of the housing emergency.

He said there was an urgent need for landlords across the country to improve essential services.

“Both our complaint review and satisfaction surveys show social housing residents deserve better,” he said. “Behind every statistic is a resident’s life that has been disrupted by landlord inaction or ineffectiveness.

“Our cases show this leads to children missing school, reports of declining health or people forced to sleep on sofas or floors". Mr Blakeway argued issues could be avoided with more investment into existing homes, improved systems and technology, and stronger service management.

What did Birmingham City Council say?

In response to the new report, Birmingham Council said it was “disappointed” to learn its maladministration rate had not improved from the previous year. It said “significant interventions and improvements” have been made by the council in response both to the 2022-23 report and the Housing Ombudsman’s Special Report of January last year, which highlighted a series of failures in the way in which the council responded to repairs and complaints.

“Following this special report, the findings of which were fully accepted, the council embarked on a significant programme of service improvements across both repairs and complaint handling,” a council spokesperson said. “[This was] aimed at improving our response to repairs, our record-keeping, our complaint handling processes and the way in which we offer financial redress where we are at fault.

“In February 2024, the Housing Ombudsman confirmed they were satisfied with the progress the council had made, and their period of active intervention had ended". The council spokesperson said many of the cases determined by the Housing Ombudsman in 2023-24 did not actually relate to complaints raised within this period.

“Tenants cannot complain to the Housing Ombudsman until the council’s internal complaints process has been exhausted,” they said. “As a result of this, and the length of time a Housing Ombudsman investigation can take, it is common for determinations to relate to failures that occurred some years before.

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“We know there are more cases relating to pre-January 2023 complaints with the Housing Ombudsman now". The spokesperson said the council was aware many historical complaints had arisen from its failure to invest in its housing stock.

“The council is now investing over £1.5 billion in the next ten years to improve our housing stock and ensure that our tenants have homes that are warm, safe and secure,” they said. “While we cannot guarantee therefore that our performance as reflected in Housing Ombudsman determinations will improve overnight, we are committed to a journey of continuous improvement.

“We expect our overall maladministration rate will reduce as our tenants feel the benefit of our service improvements and investment in our housing stock.”

In response to the case of severe maladministration highlighted earlier this year, the council previously apologised to the residents involved and acknowledged “unnecessary distress and inconvenience” had been caused.

“It is important to note the issues raised in all these cases occurred prior to the Housing Ombudsman’s Special Report of January 2023,” they added. “Whilst this does not excuse the failings in the cases highlighted, the council has been working in partnership with the Housing Ombudsman since this time to deliver significant improvements.”