17th June 2025

What surprised us most about Hackney Council’s response to the damning Ombudsman’s report into Housing Services in the borough was the complacency with which it was greeted. The report highlights abject failures on many fronts, yet there was no humility or heart-felt apology from The Mayor, Senior Officers or the Cabinet lead on housing. Dozens, if not hundreds of families have suffered because Hackney wasn’t fixing their homes. Their lives have been blighted, and all too often they were gaslit by the Council because ‘the computer said no’. The ombudsman showed beyond doubt that it was Hackney’s systems which were malfunctioning – as he said, this was one of the most severe cases of maladministration he has come across. 

Hackney has promised a report responding to the Ombudsman. Starting at the top, senior management needs to show it’s really hearing what residents are saying. There must be a clear shift of culture at the top, acknowledging how poor procedures rather than failures by the workforce, allowed the problem to get out of hand. That means ensuring repair jobs are properly checked before they’re signed off, no more jobs are ‘lost’ in the system, complaints are dealt with promptly and cyclical maintenance is carried out before problems reach crisis point. If the Housing Services Director can’t produce a clear plan to put matters right within a swift and monitored timetable, he must consider his position.  

Watch the Hackney Council meeting discussing the report below

Read the Housing Ombudsman’s report via this link

The report did a detailed investigation of 49 cases related to problems in Hackney’s council housing and found a maladminstration rate of 79%. This rate rose to 86% in cases of leaks, damp and mould. l repairs. In August 2024, Hackney Council had 1,400 open damp and mould cases, including more than 500 cases that were overdue, and over 600 cases identified as severe. In relation to repairs, some tenants waited 3 years for Hackney Council to take action, often making multiple visits to the same home when one should’ve been enough. The report identified a cause of problems as the Council’s “inability to view things in a realistic way, rather than through a ‘positivity prism’” (p.40). This leads to a focus on surface outputs, such as visiting a home where there is a damp problem, rather than meaningful outcomes, such as addressing the damp problem that is affecting people’s health. The Ombudsman ensured that those impacted got compensation with Hackney Council paying out over £75k.