‘Have some humility’: Leader bites back at opposition as council grilled on housing repairs

Camden Council has been forced to defend its response to sharp criticism from the housing regulator over its complaints service, after the local opposition leader called for a show of “humility”.

In November, the social housing ombudsman rebuked the council’s conduct as a landlord, citing repeated failures to repair and maintain housing stock — worsened by a “defensive” and “dismissive” approach to complaints.

The Labour-run council has stressed that in light of these findings it has not changed its processes but is working hard to go “above and beyond” the watchdog’s recommendations.

Despite this, the Liberal Democrats triggered an extraordinary council meeting held on Monday (20 January), after rounding on the Town Hall for its “shocking disregard for resident’s welfare”.

Opposition leader Cllr Tom Simon (Belsize) said: “The housing ombudsman’s report identified a dismissive culture in the housing repair service.

“It was therefore telling, or worrying, that the council’s initial response to that report was to immediately cite all the difficulty it faces, and to distance itself from many of the case studies in the report — describing them as historic things going back to 2021 or 2022.

“If this council is going to truly transform our housing repair service, it will require two fundamental things from its leadership: the humility to acknowledge that this council has not been good enough without rushing to make excuses, and the right vision and aspiration.”

His words were backed by the Conservative leader, Cllr Steve Adams (Frognal), who attacked the council for its “wait-and-see” approach ahead of the report’s publication.

“Well, we waited, and we saw”, he said, pointing to the ombudsman’s “damning” conclusions of “poor communication and systemic inefficiencies”.

Cllr Adams called for the local authority to collect, record and publish the watchdog’s findings on the council website and to publicise its ongoing response to the report.

Council leader Richard Olszewski (Labour, Fortune Green) acknowledged the deep dissatisfaction of tenants and leaseholders, and asserted that the Town Hall was not being complacent.

But he was quick to knock back the opposition’s calls for more contrition, turning the tables on their respective parties’ records.

“I’m always humble about our performance. It really would be good to have some humility from the representatives of the political party, or both of them, that visited austerity upon public services, from which we are still recovering, and how they approached the funding of local authority housing by freezing rents,” he said.

“For tenants who pay rent here, that’s attractive. Why wouldn’t they like that? But the consequences of it are that we have an accumulative loss of funding of £168 million.

“Had rents for the current year gone in line with inflation as on the previous models, we would have an extra annual amount of money of about £30 million.

“Think what we could do for our repair service with that. That is something we have to overcome, and will take a long time to overcome.”

Housing ombudsman Richard Blakeway found numerous incidents of severe maladministration (83 per cent) in 2023/24, and uncovered “dismissive” attitudes from council officers which risked discouraging valid complaints.

Poor record-keeping also contributed to repair management failures. Of 57 complaints investigated, 124 findings of maladministration were made — indicating unreasonable delays or failures to act appropriately.

Mr Blakeway referred to specific cases, including a man with arthritis who was forced to use stairs due to a broken lift which had gone unresolved despite prior complaints.

Another involved a leaseholder who waited more than six years for the council’s response to a complaint about renovations.

However, the regulator said the Town Hall had engaged “positively” throughout the investigation and welcomed Camden’s “new vision” for its complaints-handling, which Olszewski said “illustrates our determination”.

Monday’s meeting saw members offer their suggestions for how the local authority could make improvements, such as an overhaul of the council’s outsourcing approach, training young people to do basic repairs on estates, and penalising contractors who miss appointments.

Councillors from the Labour benches emphasised that work was ongoing to ensure “better accountability” for contractors, and insisted that repairs and maintenance had been financially and politically constrained.

The council chief also stressed that the Town Hall was “constantly” going out to engage with residents, such as through advisory and oversight panels, district management committees, leaseholder forums and the resident action day in September.

“I do not recall seeing any Lib Dems at that [event],” Cllr Olszewski said.

Cabinet member for better homes, Cllr Sagal Abdi-Wali (Camden Square), “acknowledged the significance” of the report, but avowed that the council was being proactive in dealing with challenges she argued were rooted in years of unfavourable government policy.

Alongside one hundred other local authorities, Camden is lobbying the new government over the allocation of social housing funding, she assured.

Yet the high levels of complaints were also part of a rising trend across the country, she said, arguing that this fact was reflected in the ombudsman’s most recent national review.

The council’s “exceptionally high” demand, which sees more than 125,000 repairs carried out each year, was also a factor, but the housing lead emphasised that the Town Hall was engaging residents further, and has also brought a new policy forward to give better support to vulnerable residents.

Echoing her leader, Cllr Abdi-Wali did not hesitate to return some of the blame to the former coalition government.

“Regardless of whether the opposition likes it or not, their national parties have left us in this situation.

“When you talk about accountability, having never really taken accountability, owned up or apologised for the two parties that put us in this position for 14 years, that’s quite interesting.”