By Richard Blakeway, the Housing Ombudsman

Every property manager will know the importance of complying with the ‘Big 6’ health and safety issues, ranging from gas to fire to lift safety. These are underpinned by a strong statutory framework stretching back decades.

While there are other bodies that may look at a range of these issues, complaints can be an early indicator of problems and landlords should use the insight they provide to test their approach.

Our latest report on learning from severe maladministration includes complaint failings that raise questions about the landlord’s approach towards meeting obligations. This includes processes not being in place or misunderstandings about obligations and significant gaps in records.

Often these complaints show landlords being aware of the situation and sometimes attending the property as an emergency.  But then events become protracted. Inspections may not happen or are done repeatedly without evidence of any necessary works being raised. Where works are raised they can become delayed, be unsuccessful or in the event may never happen.

Given many of the safety issues should be dealt with as emergencies, within hours or days, it’s deeply concerning that we’re seeing issues unresolved for months or years. The delays can be staggering: 28 months without a fire door at the entrance of a property; two years with a condemned gas boiler; 17 months with an electrical safety issues unresolved; two years with asbestos after a ceiling collapse; six years with an unresolved drainage issue; 21 months with a lift out of action. This is just a snapshot of the ongoing failings in this area.

The human cost of these failings can be acute. Are you able to imagine living for two years with bin bags covering up a hole in your ceiling where asbestos may be present? Or not having electricity in your bathroom for eight years because water is leaking into the sockets? In both of these examples, children were present.

And whilst all this goes on, there’s good practice. We know gas safety compliance remains high, there are some situations being dealt with every day with overwhelming satisfaction rates, even by some of the landlords that we see in our casework. That makes it all the more important to make sure you learn the lessons where those mistakes are made, or those cases fall through the cracks. Landlords can still make improvements even when they are hitting KPIs.

So, what other learning can the sector take from our casework on safety?

Other than delays, a failure to follow processes or a lack of procedure is exposed in some cases.

Occasionally, a failure to grasp obligations is apparent, including in relation to fire safety. Extremely poor communication is also commonplace.

Despite most landlords being aware of the resident’s circumstances, such as young children or health conditions, many failed to mitigate the risks when it became clear that it’d take them longer to resolve the problems. This includes failing to consider temporary moves. This is unlikely to fulfil the requirements of Awaab’s Law, which is now just six months away from implementation.

The interface between one hazard and wider disrepair can be apparent too. But the most striking failure is one of omission – an absence of records or evidence of action.

Complaints can provide vital intelligence for boards to seek assurance and the executive to deconstruct the case to learn lessons. Was this isolated or not? Why didn’t the landlord follow our process? Why didn’t it move the household from potential harm? Why were the landlord’s actions not aligned with its analysis of the situation? Why were there repeated and excessive delays? Why didn’t the landlord put things right in our complaints process? And why were some issues left outstanding until we intervened?