‘Serious concerns’ with Tower Hamlets Council housing repair service
The Council paid out more than £106,000 in compensation to its tenants last year, with complaints over repairs behind a ‘significant proportion’.
Tower Hamlets Council paid out more than £106,000 in compensation to its tenants over complaints last year.
Complaints over repairs were behind a ‘significant proportion’ of the compensation paid out, according to a report presented to council leaders.
Speaking at a meeting of senior councillors yesterday (Wednesday 30th) Tower Hamlets mayor Lutfur Rahman said the council’s housing repairs service ‘needs to be sorted out’.
Rahman said, ‘We have serious concerns about the repair service. We had serious concerns about mould and condensation – still we do about repairs, mould and condensation in our stock.’
He added, ‘The repair service needs to be sorted out.
‘I’m going to people’s houses and I see the conditions some of those houses are in, the flats are in, when it comes to mould, condensation, when it comes to repairs.
‘Still, the repairs are not done properly.’
Rahman was speaking at a meeting of the council cabinet’s housing sub-committee.
An annual report to the committee on council housing complaints said the authority had paid out £106,684 in compensation relating to complaints in the 2024/25 financial year – an average of £128 per complaint.
It said the council had received 2,385 complaints, of which 41% were upheld in full and another 27% upheld in part.
Both the number of complaints and the proportion that were upheld had fallen compared to the previous year. But the report said there had been a ‘decline in performance with our repairs service’.
It said the number of complaints that were upheld was ‘primarily due to delays in completing the repairs, not following through promised actions, poor quality of works and failure to award compensation, which was reflective and proportionate to the issues identified’.
The report pinned the ‘decline’ on ‘supply chain and resourcing issues’ among contractors that the council hires to carry out repairs on its behalf.
David Joyce, the council’s corporate director of housing, told the committee that his department was taking a ‘more robust’ approach to managing its contractors.
He said the council was ‘making strides’ and ‘made substantial improvements’ in its handling of complaints. But he said the council still had ‘further to go’, particularly around its handling of complaints.
The report came following an inspection by the Regulator of Social Housing in April, which found ‘serious failings’ in how the council was meeting consumer standards as a landlord, requiring ‘significant improvement’.
The council had referred itself to the regulator in October 2024, having taken management of its council homes back in-house from its previous, arms-length management company Tower Hamlets Homes in November 2023.
The regulator reported that 23% of the council’s housing didn’t meet the decent homes standard, and less than half of its stock had a property survey in the last five years.
It also found there were ‘serious failings’ in how it was managing electrical and fire safety and water hygiene repairs. And it found there were around 2,500 overdue fire safety actions and 750 overdue water safety remedial actions.
Aspire councillor Kabir Ahmed, responsible for housing, said the council was not alone in failing to meet the social housing consumer standards introduced in April 2024.
Cllr Ahmed said: ‘Much like us a lot of councils who have previously underinvested in building stock, building safety, have found themselves in a position where they haven’t met all the consumer standards.’
He said that the council had now invested £140million into surveying and improving its housing stock.
The number of outstanding high-risk fire safety actions had fallen by 60% and the number of outstanding legionella actions had fallen by 83% since the inspection, Cllr Ahmed added.
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