Service improvements

Birmingham City Council

Showing service improvements between 1 April 2021 and 31 March 2022

Find out more about service improvements

When we find fault, we can recommend improvements to systems and processes where they haven’t worked properly, so that others do not suffer from these same problems in future. Common examples are policy changes; procedural reviews; and staff training. Service improvements from decisions are published for 5 years and those from reports are published for 10 years.

Showing 21 - 30 of 32 cases with service improvements

Export results (CSV)

Downloads the current filtered list of service improvement decisions for Birmingham City Council as a CSV file.

  • Birmingham City Council (20 011 188)

    Category: Housing Date: 25-Mar-2022

    Summary

    The Council has failed in its statutory duty to ensure the accommodation it provides for Mrs B’s household is suitable. The Council also failed to properly consider whether Mrs B’s son needed his own room for medical reasons and fettered its discretion when it decided not to allow Mrs B to bid on smaller properties. The Council also delayed reviewing the suitability of Mrs B’s accommodation, delayed reviewing Mrs B’s housing priority and delayed dealing with her complaints. The Council has agreed to make a payment to Mrs B, offer Mrs B suitable temporary accommodation, consider allowing Mrs B to bid on smaller properties and to take action to prevent similar failings in future.

    Service improvements

    The Council has agreed to develop a policy on how to allocate temporary housing to homeless applicants waiting on the planned move list, and in particular how to prioritise between applicants in accommodation with shared facilities and applicants in significantly overcrowded accommodation.The Council has agreed to take action to ensure it carries out reviews of the suitability of accommodation within the statutory timescales.The Council has agreed to highlight this case to relevant staff and remind them to fully explain the reasons for their decisions when carrying out housing priority reviews.The Council has agreed to consider whether to amend its Housing Allocations Scheme to allow applicants who are significantly overcrowded, but not statutorily overcrowded, to bid on properties with one less bedroom than they need, but with two reception rooms.The Council has agreed to take action to reduce delays in complaint handling.

  • Birmingham City Council (20 010 367)

    Category: Housing Date: 11-Feb-2022

    Summary

    The Council delayed processing a change to Mr and Mrs B’s housing circumstances which meant they were unable to bid on properties of the size they needed. The Council also delayed dealing with their complaints about this. There was no fault in the way the Council decided which housing priority band to award to Mr and Mrs B, and there is no evidence of fault in the way it has allocated properties. However, information the Council publishes on its website about properties it has recently let is not always accurate. The Council has agreed to take action to ensure the information is always accurate, and to apologise and make a payment to Mr and Mrs B.

    Service improvements

    To ensure the information the Council publishes about recent lets is accurate, the Council has requested a change to its software. In the meantime, the Council will put measures in place to ensure the information it publishes is checked for accuracy.

  • Birmingham City Council (20 010 278)

    Category: Education Date: 06-Sep-2021

    Summary

    There was no evidence of fault by the Council in ensuring a child received the special educational provision in their Education, Health and Care plan. There was however fault in failing to provide appeal rights after reviews of the Plan. The uncertainty of whether an earlier appeal may have led to additional or different education being provided is an injustice. Recommendations for an apology, financial payment and service improvements are made.

    Service improvements

    The Council's restructuring of its Special Educational Needs Team will include a review of Education, Health & Care and annual review processes to ensure annual review decisions are issued in a timely way giving families appeal rights.The Council's current special educational needs review will include a review of the sufficiency of vocational education places locally.

  • Birmingham City Council (20 009 677)

    Category: Adult care services Date: 25-Aug-2021

    Summary

    Mrs X complained about the way the Council reassessed her adult son Mr S’s care needs and about its failure to cover the cost of an increase in the care provider’s hourly rate. The Council was at fault. It delayed reassessing Mr S and has not shown how the revised budget is sufficient to meet Mr S’s needs. It has not backdated the direct payments sufficiently leaving Mr S in debt to the care provider. The Council has agreed to apologise and make a payment to Mrs X to acknowledge the frustration the faults caused her. It has also agreed to pay the backdated amounts owed to the care provider and Mr S, and to produce evidence to show how the budget is sufficient to meet Mr S’s needs.

    Service improvements

    The Council will remind staff of the importance of involving family members in a needs assessment and of the need for transparency in determining support hours and that they disclose the support hours tools calculations where requested.The Council will explain what action it has taken to prevent unnecessary delays in future in carrying out reassessments and agreeing and implementing revised budgets.The Council will review the practice of how and when direct payments are increased to determine if they should be raised annually in line with inflation or to recognise the requirement of the living/minimum wage.

  • Birmingham City Council (20 008 765)

    Category: Benefits and tax Date: 27-Aug-2021

    Summary

    Ms X complains about how the Council has dealt with her Council Tax account. The Council is at fault as it delayed in sending a Council Tax bill to Ms X setting out her arrears at her former property, delaying in clarifying that her arrears related to her former property when she contacted the Council, failed to follow its vulnerability guidelines and delayed in correctly calculating her eligibility for Council Tax Support. These faults caused distress and avoidable time and trouble to Ms X which the Council has agreed to remedy.

    Service improvements

    By training or other means, ensure officers are aware of the Council’s vulnerability guidelines and when these should be applied;Review its procedures or guidelines for officers to ensure the faults experienced by Ms X do not recur. This should include ensuring officers check whether a Council Tax payer has other open accounts when closing an account to ensure a final bill is sent to their current address and all accounts are checked when dealing with queries from a Council Tax payer.

  • Birmingham City Council (20 008 548)

    Category: Housing Date: 05-Oct-2021

    Summary

    Mrs Y complained about the Council’s response to her request for a re-assessment of her housing band award following a change in circumstances. The Ombudsman has found fault by the Council in the way it dealt with the request, causing injustice. The Council has agreed to remedy this by making an apology, a payment to reflect the distress and inconvenience caused by this fault and a service improvement.

    Service improvements

    provide us with evidence it has reviewed: Its response to information from applicants about their, or householdmembers, health or disability issues, to ensure its process for assessingmedical housing need is clearly explained.provide us with evidence it has reviewed its process for the completion of assessments required for theassessment of medical housing need, to ensure any barriers for applicants in arrangingthese are removed.

  • Birmingham City Council (20 007 920)

    Category: Adult care services Date: 25-Aug-2021

    Summary

    Mr and Mrs X complained about the way the Council reassessed their adult son Mr S’s care needs and about its failure to cover the cost of an increase in the care provider’s hourly rate. The Council was at fault. It delayed reassessing Mr S and has not shown how the revised budget is sufficient to meet Mr S’s needs. It has not backdated the direct payments sufficiently leaving Mr S in debt to the care provider. The Council has agreed to apologise and make a payment to Mr and Mrs X to acknowledge the frustration the faults caused them. It has agreed to pay the backdated amount owed to the care provider and to produce evidence to show how the budget is sufficient to meet Mr S’s needs.

    Service improvements

    The Council has agreed to remind staff of the need for transparency in determining support hours and to disclose the support hours tools calculations where requested.The Council has agreed to explain what action it has taken to prevent unnecessary delays in carrying out reassessments and agreeing and implementing revised budgets.The Council has agreed to review the practice of how and when direct payments are increased to determine if they should be raised annually in line with inflation or to recognise the requirement of the living/minimum wage.

  • Birmingham City Council (20 007 731)

    Category: Education Date: 10-Nov-2021

    Summary

    Ms X complains about how the Council dealt with Mr Y’s Education, Health and Care plan. The Council is at fault as it failed to consider if it should hold an interim review of Mr Y’s plan following his discharge from hospital, failed to issue a final plan between early 2019 and November 2020, failed to ensure Mr Y received the provision in his plan from November 2020 and caused Mr Y to miss some home tuition. The Council’s record keeping was also poor. The Council has agreed to remedy the injustice to Ms X and Mr Y by making a payment of £3000 to them plus the refund of gym fees paid by Ms X.

    Service improvements

    Review its procedures for dealing with EHC plans to ensure they are in accordance with the SEND Code. The review should include procedures to: • ensure the delays experienced by Mr Y in issuing his EHC plan do not recur • ensure officers consider if they should hold an interim review in the event of a child/young person’s change of circumstances. • ensure provision set out in section F is delivered; • improve the Council’s record keeping by ensuring it has an audit trail of how it has dealt with a child’s/young person’s EHC plan including records of the annual reviews. The Council should provide a copy of its revised procedures to the Ombudsman and explain how it will improve its practice in this area.

  • Birmingham City Council (20 006 959)

    Category: Education Date: 18-Mar-2022

    Summary

    There was fault by the Council in failing to secure provision in an Education, Health and Care plan in 2020 and again in 2021. This led to lost special educational provision, distress and unnecessary time and trouble. Recommendations for an apology, financial payment and service improvements are made.

    Service improvements

    The Council will remind Special Educational Needs officers the legal duty to secure special educational provision in an Education, Health and Care Plan rests with the Council and cannot be delegated to settings.

  • Birmingham City Council (20 005 883)

    Category: Education Date: 05-Aug-2021

    Summary

    Ms X complained about the way the Council dealt with her son’s Education Health and Care Plan and his special educational needs support following a Tribunal decision. The Council failed to take reasonable steps to put the support in place during the COVID-19 lockdown, and delayed in reviewing his Plan. This meant Y lost the opportunity to receive support he needed and there was a failure to plan for his future, causing him anxiety and uncertainty. The Council has agreed a remedy, including payments and a review of procedures.

    Service improvements

    The Council will review its processes for a) checking it sends new and amended Education Health and Care Plans to education settings and that provision is being delivered; and b) ensuring Annual Review are completed on time, especially at key stages in the young person's education.

LGO logogram

Review your privacy settings

Required cookies

These cookies enable the website to function properly. You can only disable these by changing your browser preferences, but this will affect how the website performs.

View required cookies

Analytical cookies

Google Analytics cookies help us improve the performance of the website by understanding how visitors use the site.
We recommend you set these 'ON'.

View analytical cookies

In using Google Analytics, we do not collect or store personal information that could identify you (for example your name or address). We do not allow Google to use or share our analytics data. Google has developed a tool to help you opt out of Google Analytics cookies.

Privacy settings