‘Weaknesses’ found after investigation into L&Q repairs service

According to the report, seen by Inside Housing, the issues that arose at that scheme “have the potential to be replicated at another scheme” if L&Q doesn’t take “corrective action”.

Campbell Tickell found that there were 412 defects on the 85-home development, which disproportionately affected one block that is home to private and social tenants as well as shared owners. These included a leaking roof and issues with heating, plumbing and sewage.

David Montague, chief executive of L&Q, said: “We accept that we didn’t get things right at this scheme and we are determined to correct matters and learn lessons.

“That’s why we very much welcome Campbell Tickell’s report as it identifies further action we can take to embed quality in all that we do, provide an excellent service and ensure we resolve customer concerns quickly when things do go wrong.”

The report also found that L&Q staff had failed to pass information up the management chain, instead allowing it to be “contained in different pockets of the organisation”.

It added: “Our principal concern from the cases we examined was that staff appeared to be operating as though following the complaints process was sufficient, rather than the primary goal being to resolve a customer’s reasonable concerns.”

According to the report, there is evidence to suggest that some of the problems were known to L&Q months before the homes were completed.

Other than initial work to fix boilers, however, residents were “left to get the best result that they could individually through the complaints process”.

This process failed to resolve the problems, meaning a leak on Boxing Day was “preventable”, according to Campbell Tickell.

Other weaknesses, the report said, were that lead responsibility was passed on at each stage of the project, that there were too many people involved without the “authority to take action”, and that there were “too many meetings”.