Lambeth Council inspected by Housing Ombudsman over complaint

The Housing Ombudsman has said it will conduct its first in-person inspection of a council over the way it handled a resident's complaint.

It found there was a "concerning" recurrence in a case where Lambeth Council did not follow its policies and failed to fully investigate the issue.

It will try to establish how the council allowed the issue to recur.

A spokesperson for the local authority said: "We are extremely disappointed that we fell below our standards."

Neither the ombudsman nor the council released details of the nature of the issue at the property.

Donna Harris, Liberal Democrat leader of the opposition, said the Labour leadership was "overseeing a litany of catastrophic housing failures", while the council's Green Party group said the involvement of the ombudsman was "long overdue".

Richard Blakeway, from the Housing Ombudsman, said: "I am proposing my team engage with the landlord to establish why the service failures reoccurred in these and any other relevant cases, using paragraph 11 of our scheme.

"Following this engagement, the ombudsman may make further recommendations for service improvement."

The ombudsman will also hold an open meeting with Lambeth residents in September to hear about issues facing tenants.

Lambeth Council apologised for the failings and said it had recently implemented a number of improvements in how it deals with complaints, including having dedicated complaints officers, better communication with contractors and increased monitoring of agreed solutions.

The spokesperson added: "We accept the ombudsman's findings in this case. We welcome this inspection as an opportunity to work with them, to demonstrate the work we're doing, and to continue improving the service we provide to all our tenants."

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