In the recent Insight Report 15 the Housing Ombudsman Service (HOS) has highlighted two conclusions relating to social landlords’ handling of gas safety testing. In both cases vulnerable residents were left without gas following capping for a lengthy period of time.

In the below insight, we outline the key themes and learnings from the insights shared by HOS.

In the first case the HOS said it was apparent that the landlord was aware of difficulties gaining access to the vulnerable resident’s property as well as a previous gas leak caused by the resident. They found that although the landlord’s policy stated it would not cap off the gas supply for vulnerable residents, in this case the safety of others in the locality should have taken priority. The HOS acknowledged that the landlord went to considerable and commendable lengths to demonstrate that it had explored every available alternative to legal action, but that it failed to carry those actions out at a sufficiently urgent pace. This resulted in a period of 11 months where the resident was left without a gas safety certificate.

In the second case the landlord capped the gas supply of an elderly resident who was Covid shielding. The HOS found that the landlord did not appear to have checked at any stage whether the resident was vulnerable or whether they had health conditions. By not doing this the landlord failed to act in accordance with its own gas safety access procedure, which stated where residents are vulnerable they should be supported by the landlord’s specialist interventions team.

Key takeaways

The HOS have set out key learning points for the sector:

• Take pre-emptive action to prepare for such a position. Although it was correct to be sensitive to residents’ vulnerabilities, by failing to adhere to relevant safety regulations the landlord was potentially putting the lives of several of its residents (including the resident themself) at risk.
• Ensure that accurate and updated records of residents’ vulnerabilities are maintained, and follow relevant procedures.

It is clear from these two cases, as well as some of the other cases featured in Insight Report 15, that the HOS is currently focussing on issues of vulnerability and record keeping. It is not possible to have a “one size fits all” model for gas safety inspections and individual circumstances need to be taken into consideration and balanced against the wider health and safety considerations.

How Capsticks can help

At Capsticks we have a specialist team who are able to assist you in relation to access injunctions for gas safety and other key safety property checks as well as wider related matters such as your relevant policies and procedures and complaints handling.

If you have any queries around what's discussed in this article, or the impact on your organisation, please speak to Sarah Christy or Steven Wood to find out more about how Capsticks can help.