Milton Keynes Council blasted by ombudsman for 'severe maladministration' over housing repairs left outstanding for years

MK City Council has received a strong reprimand from the government after an ombudsman found it guilty of failing to carry out housing repairs to the expected standard.

Today (Thursday) the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities has taken the unusual step of writing to the council’s chief executive following a finding of severe maladministration by the Housing Ombudsman.

The complaint that prompted the action came from a disabled tenant, who is visually impaired and lives in a council bungalow with her son, who has a heart condition.

She had raised issues with the council about defective drainage, damp wet-rooms, water leakage, defective windows and doors and problems with electric wiring since 2015-2016.

Not only were there were “repeated failings” by the council to properly address these repairs, but its officials “did not express any empathy or sympathy” towards the resident or recognise the impact the situation had on her and her child, said the ombudsman.

A spokesman for the Housing Ombudsman Service said: “We have made a finding of severe maladministration against Milton Keynes Council after its inappropriate complaint handling led to a disabled resident and her son living with multiple repairs issues outstanding for years.

"The complaint relates to various repairs jobs that were not completed, with repairs logs showing at least 120 jobs raised for the one household alone over four years.”

For its failures, the council has now been ordered to pay the tenant £5,500 in compensation.

It was the complaint handling where the Ombudsman found severe maladministration, with a “host of issues” hampering the tenant.

Firstly, the landlord failed to raise her formal complaint when it came in, with a councillor’s attempts to chase a formal response also unsuccessful, said the Ombudsman’s report, which can be read in full here.

There were also then delays to both the stage one and two responses, despite the Ombudsman getting involved.

“When it did respond, the landlord failed to provide a thorough investigation of its repairs handling and address the outstanding issues raised by the resident. On top of this, it failed to recognise the amount of time and the number of appointments it took to resolve some of the issues,” states the report.

On top of the compensation, the ombudsman has ordered the council to apologise to the tenant, carry out repairs and a damp and mould inspection.

Richard Blakeway, Housing Ombudsman, said: “A mother and her son, who both have disabilities, were not treated with the respect they deserved.

“Understandably, the family felt discriminated against because of the landlord’s poor communication, compounded by repeated failings on repairs.

“The landlord failed to respond within the timescales of the Complaint Handling Code and its policies, did not address the key failings within the case and continues to show few signs of learning from these errors.

“We also found maladministration in how it handled repairs at the property and its record keeping for not keeping adequate repairs records or obtain any records from its contractors.”

Milton Keynes City Council has issued a statement saying: “We recognise the decision; we apologise to the resident for their experience, and we have put actions in place to prevent these kinds of delays happening again.”