Dear Grainne,
Thank you for your request dated 21 November 2022, we have treated this as a Freedom of Information request. You have asked for the following information:
Between November 21st 2022 and November 21st 2017, how main compensation claims did you pay out to council tenants after they claimed damp and/or mould caused them respiratory issues/ ill health.
How much money was paid out for all the claims?
Can you give a breakdown in cost per year?
What was the most paid out in a single claim?
Barnet Homes’ response:
The information requested of us is too specific for the information that we currently hold.
The below table is the total spend for damages paid for disrepairs since 2017 and it is in no way reflective of an amount relating to your specific request as we do not record the information in that way at this time.
| 2017/18 | 2018/19 | 2019/20 | 2020/21 | 2021/22 | 2022/to date | Total | |
| No of disrepair claims | 27 | 42 | 55 | 74 | 84 | 90 | 372 |
| Resident Damages | £63,018.00 | £62,403.00 | £69,094.00 | £80,564.64 | £122,426.64 | £159,470.59 | £556,976.87 |
The information in the above table is a total amount of compensation for all the disrepair claims. This will include compensation for claims that are not damp and mould, e.g. structural claims. We currently do not record settlements in such a way that allows us to differentiate for the reasons for the disrepair payment.
At this point, that analysis will require every claim over the defined period to be gone through individually.
Refusal Notice
s12 (cost of compliance exceeds appropriate limit)
The data you have requested is substantial and in order to respond to the request we would need to review 372 disrepairs for the years you have requested, and would reasonably estimate it to take in excess of 93 hours to review.
- 372 disrepairs x 15 minutes = 93 hours.
To meet this request, we would need to carry out a manual process and interrogate each disrepair individually, which we believe would take at least 15 minutes per case.
We therefore estimate that this exercise would take in excess of 93 hours to complete for one member of staff.
We estimate that compliance with your request would exceed the appropriate time/costs limit under section 12 of the Freedom of information Act 2000. This is currently 18 hours /£450. Section 12 (1) of the FOIA does not oblige a public authority to comply with a request for information if the authority estimates that the time or cost of complying with the request would exceed the appropriate limit as set out above.
I can advise that some claims will have cited that the property conditions are prejudicial to health, but those claims have not been substantiated with medical evidence to prove this. The only time that we take medical information is when carrying out a decant and that is for two reasons:
- To establish the residents needs for a new property.
- When the resident insists on staying in a property and we argue the work we are carrying out could be prejudicial to health, i.e. hacking off plaster, asbestos removal etc.
Our position in that case is that, under disrepair, there have been no substantiated claims that fall under the criteria of the request.
We are dealing with a two claims relating to personal injury from disrepair. One is regarding a window, the other is damp and mould related, however, they are both still in progress and as yet no settlement has been made. To date, no liability on our part has been found for either claim.
Your rights
If you are unhappy with the way your request for information has been handled, you can request a review by emailing Talk2Us@barnethomes.org and marking it as an appeal for the attention of the Data Controller.
If you remain dissatisfied with the handling of your request or complaint, you have a right to appeal to the Information Commissioner at: The Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF (telephone: 08456 30 60 60 or 01625 54 57 45; website: www.ico.gov.uk).
There is no charge for making an appeal.
Kind regards
Carly Williamson