A council estate resident had their compensation increased by the housing ombudsman after a review of a complaint confirmed council failures.
Craven Vale resident Lee Catt was awarded £850 by the housing ombudsman over a series of failing by Brighton and Hove City Council, plus a further £500 offered by the council last year over cleaning issues in his block.
The compensation covers failure to handle anti-social behaviour, failing to make adequate reasonable adjustments for Mr Catt, failing to follow up on cleaning complaints in the block and for the impact of the complaint process.
A senior manager is also required to apologise for the failings either in writing or in person.
The compensation comes after the council and Mr Catt asked for a review of a ruling made in December when the ombudsman awarded £550 compensation.
In its request for a review the council highlighted the £500 compensation already offered in June 2024.
The council also acknowledged Mr Catt was sent misleading information about cleaning in the block and confirmed discussions it had previously denied had taken place.
Mr Catt’s asked for a review as he provided evidence he had reported issues and was treated differently by the council.
In her ruling, the adjudicator, Katherine Brown, said that although all complaint responses were requested for the investigation, the council did not provide them and “hindered” the ombudsman’s ability to consider all evidence.
Ms Brown increased the cleaning element of compensation as the council did not respond quickly enough after a neighbour left faeces in the communal hallway on Friday 20 September 2023, sending a team out in mid-October.
She also increased compensation for the handling of anti-social behaviour and failing to make adequate adjustments for Mr Catt and required the council pay its original offer of £500.
Ms Browns’ report said: “Given there is evidence of record-keeping failures on the landlord’s (council) part, I recommend the landlord conduct a review of its record-keeping processes to ensure they are sufficient.
“Overall, although I believe the determination made at the previous stage is correct and should stand, I also find it appropriate to increase the compensation awarded to the resident and add a further recommendation to ensure the landlord’s record-keeping is adequate.”
Mr Catt as previously commented that his “cards were marked” by the council because he complained about drug dealers and anti-social behaviour on the Craven Vale housing estate.
He has helped rally his community together over the past three years after drug dealers were housed on the estate, and one nightmare neighbour threatened and shot at residents before eventually being evicted.
Partly as a result of his and a neighbour’s efforts, a nightmare neighbour, Alex Holmgren, now 29, formerly of Craven Road, was jailed for 30 months just before Christmas 2023. His home was made the subject of a closure order.
Mr Catt said: “The reason I continue to make justified complaints to the regulators regarding Brighton and Hove City Council, and some its officers conduct, is to give hope to the wider public that when they identify wrongdoing they should persist in their complaints with the correct regulators.
“This way the community will hold those accountable for allowing this type of behaviour to exist within the council even when they’ve been given the evidence directly.
“If they find more residents doing this they will not be able to hide behind their reputations and positions as independent organisations will hold them accountable and reveal their true colours to the wider public.”
Mr Catt, sent the council a “subject access request” – requiring the council to disclose its internal communications about him – after noticing that he was treated differently and services were being withdrawn after his complaints.
The subject access request showed that council officials wanted to “push back” on complaints and regular communication with him even though he was a victim of anti-social behaviour.
His neighbour also made a subject access request which contained the same information as Mr Catt’s. The Information Commissioner’s Office found a breach of data rights.
In the past year, Mr Catt and his neighbour have escalated their complaints. These have been the subject of multiple data breaches, with the council mixing their information and including information from other neighbours’ complaints
Craven Vale Community Association (CVCA) secretary Alan Cooke wrote to council leader Bella Sankey and chief executive Jess Gibbons on Monday (17 March) to complain how the treatment received by Mr Catt and his neighbour impacting on the wider community.
Mr Cooke wrote that two of the residents – highly respected in the community, having helped their neighbours tackle anti-social behaviour and having worked hard to improve the area – were now being treated as “persona non grata”.
Labour councillor Gill Williams, the cabinet member for housing and new homes, said: “We acknowledge the Housing Ombudsman’s decision to uphold the complaint by Mr Catt and can confirm we have acted on all the orders made.
“As a council committed to learning, we have taken on board the ombudsman’s report and will continue to improve our services for all residents in Brighton and Hove.
“We will also continue to work with, and listen to, the Craven Vale community to address their concerns.
“I am very keen to make sure all residents feel safe in their neighbourhood.”
Well done to this resident for pursing things and taking it to the ombudsman. The council’s complaints process is very difficult to navigate so unfortunately so many valid complaints don’t get to the ombudsman to even be investigated in the first place and shut down before that stage. The council are supposed to record issues that are ‘expressions of dissatisfaction’ as formal complaints, but things often get logged as service issues, when it’s clear things have gone far beyond that point and they meet the ombudsman’s code of practice on the definition of a complaint.
In this case, it’s quite shocking that the ombudsman says the council “hindered” the ombudsman’s investigation – statements like that are really quite alarming and suggest the council is trying to hide from its failings and prevent them being properly looked into independently. Tenants need to be alert to this, and ensure that the council record their complaints properly, and go to the ombudsman if they have concerns the council is not adhering to its own complaints procedure.
The council don’t care they advise you to make complaints and never do anything about it. Our estate is dirty and full of druggies, they can right off millions from the i360 but allocate a cleaner for two hours a day