Michael Gove has said he is “appalled” by Southwark Council for leaving a pregnant woman without heating for six months, among other cases.
In a letter to council CEO Althea Loderick, the housing secretary slammed the local authority, saying its response to complaints “fell well below the standards residents should expect”.
Gove sent a similar letter to neighbouring Lambeth Council on August 16, saying it had “failed… residents yet again”.
But the Housing Secretary has drawn criticism for the letter to Southwark, with Bermondsey and Old Southwark MP Neil Coyle branding Gove a “hypocrite”.
While agreeing that Southwark Council “must improve and fast”, he said the Conservatives had “taken millions from every council’s budget” since 2010.
Gove’s letter to Southwark Council highlighted four separate cases where the Housing Ombudsman found the Labour-run council was guilty of “severe maladministration”.
Residents were left in damp, mouldy and leaky flats, with one wrongly accused of vandalising their own home.
Southwark Council was ordered to pay over £11,000 in compensation across the four cases.
In his letter, Gove continued: “You must treat all tenants with respect and dignity. I will be taking a personal interest in how your organisation delivers its responsibilities.”
Southwark Council had already apologised “unreservedly for the distress caused to these families by our actions and processes” and vowed to improve its services.
Southwark’s opposition Liberal Democrat leader Cllr Victor Chamberlain has said Southwark Labour is “failing to provide the safe, good quality housing that everyone in our borough deserves”.
But he also criticised the Conservative government saying it had “recklessly cut local government funding, leaving vital housing services under-resourced and vulnerable”.
The first of four ombudsman cases Gove highlighted saw a pregnant woman “left without heating for six months in the coldest period of the year”.
The ombudsman’s report said: “The landlord’s complaint responses were delayed, did not address the concerns of the resident, did not follow its own complaint policy and were issued without any apology or empathy.”
Another case found Southwark “unfairly dismissed” a family’s pleas to move out of the leaky flat despite an NHS trust warning about its “extensive mould and damp”.
The third case, published in July, criticised the council’s handling of a resident’s request for a copy of a service charge final bill after major works.
The fourth case, also in July, saw Southwark Council wrongly accuse a man of vandalising his kitchen and then refuse him a property exchange.
Southwark Council wrongly accused man of vandalising his kitchen then refused to let him move
Cllr Kieron Williams, Leader of Southwark Council, said: “I would like to say again how sorry we are to the residents involved with these cases from previous years. They should not have happened and we have since made many changes to ensure we learn the lessons from each case. This week we published our plans for improving our repairs service, overseen by a resident board, and that work is already showing improvements.
“We take full responsibility for the things that went wrong in these historic cases and will continue to work with residents to improve our services. That job would be greatly helped if the government stopped reducing the money we have to spend on our homes.
“Decisions made by government ministers have taken hundreds of millions of pounds out of the funds councils have to maintain our tenants’ homes. Yes we need to get things right, and we are working hard to do that, but the government need to play their part too.”
Southwark Liberal Democrat Leader Cllr Victor Chamberlain said: “Southwark Labour are failing to provide the safe, good quality housing that everyone in our borough deserves. Even the government has now felt the need to step in and publicly criticise their record.”
But he also noted that the “Conservative Government has recklessly cut local government funding, leaving vital housing services under-resourced”.
“While Labour and the Tories fight over where to lay blame for these failures, it’s the people in poor quality housing who continue to suffer,” he added.
MP Neil Coyle said: “Southwark council must improve and fast. People need better communications and the strategy to reduce delays must be effective.
“But Gove is a hypocrite; he’s has been at the top of Governments since 2010 and taken millions from every council’s budget, including Southwark. The idea he can pour new demands into councils and cut their funds but expect no impact on services is a nonsense and he knows it.”
When Lambeth Council responded to Michael Gove’s letter in August, it said: “After 13 year in power and doing nothing, we need a government that works with councils to invest in services and improving homes, instead of firing off letters from Whitehall while doing nothing to solve the UK housing crisis.”
Southwark Council has been approached for comment.