Project date – March 2023
Project brief
The Housing Ombudsmen published a new spotlight report on Damp and Mould urging housing providers to take a zero tolerance approach. Within this report 26 recommendations were made, across four key themes.
Although there is no legal requirement for landlords to self assess against these requirements, this scrutiny project was commissioned to assess our current approach and determine whether there were any changes that we could make, based on the recommendations of the IHO.
Recommendations
- Enhance the communication we have with tenants to ensure that we offer regular, consistent communication regardless of how tenants would like to be communicated
- Ensure that agreed appointments for each case are met with oversight of any missed or moved appointments
- To reintroduce inspections and treatment prior to the completion of a mutual exchange
- Enhance our audit trail and utilisation of our no access policy to ensure it is used consistently
- Update our Damp and Mould policy to define how we prioritise vulnerable tenants
- Assess the links and prioritise fuel poverty, retrofit and Damp and Mould in our planned works
Action update
We have implemented communication touchpoints to ensure that tenants understand the next steps in getting their Damp and Mould issues resolved.
Our Damp and Mould team are now alerted when an appointment made by an external contractor is moved or missed so that they can follow this up accordingly.
We have reintroduced inspections prior to a mutual exchange taking place to ensure that repairs can be made before the exchange is completed.
Our Damp and Mould policy has been reviewed to provide clearer guidance to colleagues on the no access process, especially where the home causing the issue is a non Midland Heart property and to define how we prioritise vulnerable residents.
In addition, we are now effectively using data to identify homes at greater risk of damp and mould to enable us to be proactive rather than reactive.
We have introduced a process to ensure that we are reviewing, at the 12 month point, whether resolved Stage 2 Damp and Mould cases have re-occurred.
Impact reviewTenants reviewed the impact of the actions and signed the actions off as having the predicted impact:
- We have assurance that our on-boarding and colleague development ensures a high end, technically competent service
- We have assurance that Damp and Mould works is being completed correctly
- We have assurance that Damp and Mould works are identified prior to the completion of a Mutual Exchange
- We have external assurance of our approach
We are pleased to say that the Damp and Mould Action plan is now complete however, through the work of the Damp and Mould Group, tenants continue to have oversight of our approach and the service we provide.
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