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Case ref:201302466
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Date:April 2014
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Body:The City of Edinburgh Council
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Sector:Local Government
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Outcome:Upheld, recommendations
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Subject:statutory notices
Summary
Ms C owned a property in Edinburgh, on which work was done under a statutory notice issued by the council. She complained to the council that they had not told her how her complaint about the management of this work would be reviewed. She then complained about this to us, saying that the council's review of her complaint did not look into her concerns fully.
When we investigated the complaint, we found a gap in the council's record-keeping because they did not provide us with some relevant correspondence between Ms C and their property conservation section. We also found that they had not told her how the review process would be conducted, because they had not sent the letter containing the advice about this to her home address. The council acknowledged that Ms C had not been provided with assurances that, despite a backlog in the handling of complaints about statutory notice cases, her case was being reviewed through an approved process.
We also found that email correspondence from Ms C to the council about her concerns over the contract of works was not included in the documents that formed part of the review. However, we found evidence that the review did consider the management of the repairs and her concerns were, therefore, covered in it.
Recommendations
We recommended that the council:
- apologise to Ms C for the failure in their record-keeping and their failure to write to her at her home address with advice about how the review process would be conducted; and
- apologise to Ms C for their failure to include an email in their consideration of her complaint about the management of statutory notices.