Case Ref: 23 005 475 Category: Housing Sub Category: Homelessness

• Within two months the Council will review the wording in the template letter accepting the main housing duty to ensure it provides clear and accurate information about the continuing duty to keep the suitability of accommodation under review and the timescale for requesting a review of the suitability of accommodation;
• within two months the Council will issue a written briefing to remind case officers of the need to complete a suitability assessment for homeless applicants at an early stage to ensure their housing needs are fully understood before any offers of accommodation are made. Where the household includes a person with a medical condition or disability, the need for a medical or OT assessment should be considered early on as part of this process.

Case Ref: 23 002 076 Category: Housing Sub Category: Allocations

• The Council will remind relevant officers of the importance of updating the tenancy records without delay when housing allocation decisions and/or medical priority review decisions are made.

Case Ref: 22 011 790 Category: Adult care services Sub Category: Assessment and care plan

• The Council will take action to ensure officers produce care and support plans when they identify eligible needs for care and support.
• The Council will review the information available for blind people on direct payments and financial assessments to make sure it is suitable for their needs.

Case Ref: 22 005 745 Category: Other Categories Sub Category: Leisure and culture

• The Council will take whatever action it deems appropriate to ensure that the provider of children's play centres amends its complaints policy.

Case Ref: 22 009 383 Category: Housing Sub Category: Homelessness

• The Council will remind relevant staff of the importance of ensuring they properly consider whether there is reason to believe a homeless applicant may be in priority need, keep a proper record of how it considered this, and confirm in writing a decision it does not owe a duty to provide interim accommodation.
• The Council will remind relevant staff of the importance of ensuring they store records of all telephone calls and emails on the applicants housing file to ensure a clear audit trail of actions taken.
• The Council will remind relevant staff of the importance of ensuring they make appropriate enquiries before deciding whether the Council owes a main housing duty, and specifically that it seeks information from the applicant before deciding they are not in priority need.
• The Council will remind relevant staff of the importance of ensuring they send all decision letters to applicants by email, where an email address is available, or in cases where an email address is not available, issues the decision letter to the applicant in person if at all possible.
• The Council was a fault in the way it handled a homelessness application. It will review whether there are any lessons to be learned from the complaints handling in this case and, in particular, consider why it did not identify any failings in its complaints process at stage 1 or stage 2, although it identified a number of failings in response to Ombudsman enquiries.

Case Ref: 22 006 243 Category: Transport and highways Sub Category: Other

• The Council should review the policies and procedures it has for working with its enforcement agents
• The Council should have systems in place for ensuring that its records are updated when informed of a service-users change of address and that all known methods of communication with a service-user are utilised before applying storage charges for keeping a car in storage when it has been released for collection.

Case Ref: 22 003 446 Category: Housing Sub Category: Homelessness

• The Council has agreed to review whether it needs to develop guidance and information for homelessness applicants to outline what information, including photos, may be requested by the Council.
• The Council will review how it will ensure that complaints which are escalated receive a timely response.

Case Ref: 22 003 113 Category: Adult care services Sub Category: Residential care

• The Council agreed that it would bring to the attention of the responsible senior officer and elected Member our concern at a shortage of residential care beds in the Borough, because care homes the Council contracts with have been closed to new placements because of building works for over two years. They agreed to write to us with an update to to explain the cause of any ongoing shortage of such beds, how long this is expected to last and any further action being taken to keep any ongoing shortage of beds to a minimum.
• The Council agreed to give a reminder to relevant social work staff and those who work with complaints about our expectations around openness and transparency. We found the Council had not been clear with the complainant about the reason for a shortage of residential care beds in the Borough and we did not want it to repeat this in communications with others who may be similarly affected.
• The Council agreed to give a reminder to staff responding to complaints on the importance of giving specific commitments when proposing action to remedy a complaint. This was to avoid giving vague promises of action that did not specify what the Council proposed doing, by when and by whom in order to remedy a complaint.

Case Ref: 22 002 539 Category: Housing Sub Category: Allocations

• the Council has agreed to review its procedures for, and guidance to officers on providing information about the availability of, and considering and offering support to applicants moving to accommodation offered under its Housing Act duties
• the Council has agreed to review its procedures for referrals from other services to ASC for care and support need assessments and safeguarding enquiries
• the Council has agreed to review its procedures for considering and recording reasonable adjustments for service users and how agreed adjustments can be accessed by all parts of the Council

Case Ref: 22 001 218 Category: Environment and regulation Sub Category: Antisocial behaviour

• The Council will remind its staff they must promptly communicate the outcome of anti-social behaviour cases to the complainant.