Case Ref: 22 008 865 Category: Children's care services Sub Category: Looked after children

• The Council will remind relevant staff of the need to consider exercising discretion to depart from its policies, depending on the circumstances of the individual case. Where it decided not to depart from its policy, it should record its reasons and explain them to the individual.
• The Council will remind relevant staff that where a complaint is considered under the children's statutory complaints process includes issues that would usually be out of scope for that process, relevant officers from the services involved should be available for interview at stage 2 and to attend a stage 3 panel, to ensure that all issues can be properly considered.

Case Ref: 22 005 414 Category: Housing Sub Category: Homelessness

• The Council will remind its housing team that it should contact residents promptly once they disclose they are at risk of domestic abuse in their property and decide without delay whether the accommodation remains suitable for them to occupy. These conversations should be handled sensitively due to the often re-traumatising effects of discussing abuse.
• The Council will remind its housing team that its suitability decisions should clearly set out why it considers the accommodation to be suitable.
• The Council will remind its housing team that the Council has a duty to inspect where there is a risk of Category 1 or 2 hazards in residential accommodation within its area.

Case Ref: 22 002 639 Category: Adult care services Sub Category: Assessment and care plan

• The Council will undertake a full review of its handling of this case. The review will identify why concerns about the care package (including the request for help with antisocial behaviour) and the request for an Occupational Therapy assessment were not addressed sooner. It will also identify why the Council did not always make reasonable adjustments when communicating with the complainant. The Council will create an action plan explaining how it will prevent a recurrence of the fault we found.

Case Ref: 21 012 716 Category: Benefits and tax Sub Category: Council tax

• The should Council remind its enforcement agents that they should pass information they receive onto the Council for its consideration.

Case Ref: 22 013 072 Category: Housing Sub Category: Allocations

• The Council has agreed to remind officers of the need to fully explore local connections and an individual’s circumstances in reaching a decision on their homelessness application, and to action requests for a review of their decisions.
• The Council has agreed to review its procedures to ensure there are no significant delays in reaching decisions on housing register applications.

Case Ref: 22 009 191 Category: Children's care services Sub Category: Other

• The Council will provide training for its staff dealing with the Children's Services complaints on the criteria to be applied when dealing with late complaints contained in the guidance 'Getting the best from complaints'. The Council will let us know when this training has been completed.

Case Ref: 22 005 978 Category: Adult care services Sub Category: Assessment and care plan

• Issue written reminders to relevant staff to ensure they are aware of: Point 12.22 of the care and support statutory guidance which says in all cases, the consideration of the request for direct payments should be concluded in as timely a manner as possible.

Case Ref: 22 004 880 Category: Housing Sub Category: Allocations

• The Council agreed to review the the information and guidance it provides to applicants and medical professionals about evidence for housing applications. It should ensure that the information does not discourage applicants and professionals from providing relevant information about the effects of health problems or disabilities for professionals who know them well.
• The Council agreed to review the requirements it places on its medical advisers to ensure the advice provided for housing allocation priority contains sufficient explanation of how the recommendation was reached to allow housing staff to fully understand the advice and make their own decision about priority.
• The Council agreed to remind its housing allocations staff that: all decisions about medical priority should be made by the Council, not by the Council's medical advisers; and while they can take into account any recommendations made by the Council's medical advisers, they should not give this any special weight, must also take into account all evidence provided by applicants and resolve any conflicts of evidence (including with the medical adviser’s recommendation) when making decisions.
• The Council agreed to review the resources it assigns to its housing allocations team to ensure it has sufficient staff to respond to applications and queries from applicants within a reasonable period of time.

Case Ref: 22 004 658 Category: Environment and regulation Sub Category: Antisocial behaviour

• The Council has also agreed to review the local community trigger procedure, in conjunction with the relevant local agencies, to ensure it is in line with the statutory community trigger guidance. This should include providing timeframes for the review process; the need to consider inviting complaints/ a representative to review meetings and how this consideration should be evidence; and provide an appeal process.

Case Ref: 22 004 342 Category: Housing Sub Category: Homelessness

• The Council has agreed it will ensure it has a process to identify and review cases where a decision on whether it owes the full housing duty are outstanding for more than three months to include management oversight and the encouragement of action plans to resolve whatever outstanding inquiries are delaying such a decision. This is to avoid lengthy delays, well in excess of Government guidance, in completing inquiries into whether it owes such a duty.
• The Council agreed to ensure it has a process to cover cases where homeless households are in need of a change of emergency or temporary accommodation because of its unsuitability. While the Council will face shortages of supply and budgetary pressures it should still be seeking to meet its statutory duties and have a way of systematically prioritising and reviewing such cases. This is to ensure there is not drift once it has identified a need to change such accommodation.
• The Council agreed to ensure that it had a process to identify complaints made about its housing services that have exceeded timescales for a reply under its corporate complaints procedure. This should include identifying who has oversight of such cases and ways for escalating concerns about non-response to senior managers. This followed a failure by the Council to reply to a complaint in this case for over eight months.