Housing association that provides homes in south London to be subject of special investigation due to high maladministration rate
The Housing Ombudsman has launched a special investigation into Wandle Housing Association, noting that the social landlord has a maladministration rate of 89%, which is judged to be comparatively high for its size.
Wandle has more than 7,000 homes across nine south London boroughs providing homes for rent (social and affordable), shared ownership, outright sale, and supported housing.
The report will aim to understand the issues facing the organisation and recommend how the organisation can prevent future failings from occurring, as well as exploring whether complaints are indicative of wider failure within the organisation.
The Ombudsman said the aim of the report is to improve policies and processes that then enable landlord staff to deliver better services for residents.
“Ensuring that this happens at a more local level will lead to enhanced resident landlord relationships, built on a trusting and solutions-focused foundation,” it added.
The special investigation report follows similar investigations carried out into Lewisham Council in July this year and into Camden Council, Hackney Council and Hyde Group at the end of 2023.
Richard Blakeway, Housing Ombudsman, said: “We are seeing a high maladministration rate with this landlord, which is of cause for concern.
“Following the investigation, we will engage with the landlord and discuss our learning recommendations, and publish these in a report highlighting any issues we have identified in the cases investigated.
“Developing this report in a collaborative way with the landlord ensures the recommendations we make can be taken forwards positively, and we will continue to work with the landlord after the publication of the report to help ensure these are implemented and drive actions.”
Anne Waterhouse, Chief Executive of Wandle, said: “We recognise that our complaint handling hasn’t been what our residents deserve and are committed to putting this right – as we’ve demonstrated in our recent complaint handling report, and residents annual report.
“We already have a project group established to look at some of the causes of our poor performance in complaint handling.
“We want to learn and improve from complaints, and look forward to working with our customers and the Ombudsman to show them what we’ve started to put in place, recent changes and improvements, and listen to their ideas about where we can do more to deliver consistently good outcomes for our customers.”
Harry Rodd
