Decision Report 201205328

Summary

Mr and Mrs C live near tenants of a housing association. Over a number of years, they told the association about continuing antisocial behaviour by their neighbours. They were dissatisfied with the time the association took to respond, the actions taken to address their concerns, and the way the executive committee conducted their investigation of the complaints.

We found that on numerous occasions the association did not interview Mr and Mrs C as they should have done, in line with their antisocial behaviour policy. They had not, therefore, responded appropriately to their concerns, so we upheld the complaint about responses and made four recommendations. We were generally satisfied that the association's other actions were reasonable, although we made two further recommendations in relation to monitoring.

Recommendations

We recommended that the association:

• apologise for failing to meet their published timescales in relation to Mr and Mrs C's reports of antisocial behaviour;
• apologise to Mr and Mrs C for failing to respond to a statement about maintenance of their neighbours’ garden;
• review their training and procedures to ensure that relevant staff are aware of the commitment to hold interviews in relation to reports of antisocial behaviour, and the timescales for these;
• review their procedures to ensure actions taken in relation to reports of antisocial behaviour are properly recorded;
• review their procedures to ensure that performance in relation to timescales for action following reports of antisocial behaviour is monitored and that the results of this monitoring are fed back to senior management on a regular basis; and
• review their procedures to ensure that any monitoring of garden maintenance beyond bi-annual walkabouts is properly recorded and the records retained for a reasonable period.