Case Ref: 22 015 414 Category: Housing Sub Category: Homelessness

• The Council will use this complaint as a case study in a written briefing to officers to remind them:a) to complete a suitability assessment for every applicant before they make an offer of accommodation;b)to check which housing duty is owed before making an offer of accommodation to ensure applicants receive the correct letter and are informed of their right to request a review of the suitability of the accommodation where appropriate;c)to communicate clearly and keep applicants informed if there are any unforeseen delays in arranging a planned move to alternative temporary accommodation.

Case Ref: 22 015 014 Category: Environment and regulation Sub Category: Refuse and recycling

• The Council has also agreed to review the way it responds to requests for replacement pods. This should include how/where it delivers replacement pods, and its communication with residents to ensure they are informed of any delays and the location of their new pod.

Case Ref: 22 014 892 Category: Housing Sub Category: Allocations

• The Council has agreed to provide guidance to its officers about the minimum floor area of a bedroom, to ensure rooms under this size are disregarded when calculating overcrowding.

Case Ref: 22 014 633 Category: Children's care services Sub Category: Child protection

• The Council agrees to issue a reminder to all relevant staff, including Investigating Officers, Independent Persons and stage three panel members involved in the statutory complaint process for childrens social care to consider, and if need, recommend remedies to address the impact of delay in completing the statutory complaint process.
• The Council agrees to provide training and guidance to all staff, including Investigating Officers, Independent Persons, Adjudicating Officers and stage three panel members involved in the statutory complaint process for childrens social care on victim blaming. The training and guidance should include particular reference to the government guidance issues within the UK Council for Internet Safety - Challenging victim blaming language and behaviours when dealing with the online experiences of children and young people.

Case Ref: 22 013 941 Category: Housing Sub Category: Allocations

• The Council has agreed to review the way it records information to ensure it is clear to officers assessing housing applications whether the applicant is owed a duty under part 7 of the Housing Act.

Case Ref: 22 013 847 Category: Housing Sub Category: Allocations

• The Council has agreed to investigate the reasons for its delay in carrying out a mobility assessment and take action to prevent such delays in future.
• The Council has previously provided action plans to show the action it is taking to reduce delays in processing housing applications and review requests. The Council has agreed to provide an updated action plan, state how long it is currently taking to process housing applications and reviews and provide a report to show how the time it is taking has changed over the last year. If delays have not significantly reduced, it will explain the reason for this.

Case Ref: 22 013 282 Category: Housing Sub Category: Allocations

• The Council has agreed to investigate why the Council’s records show that officers believed a ‘not homeless decision’ had been made, but a decision letter was not sent to the complainant. It will then take action to ensure this does not happen again.
• The Council has agreed to discuss this case with the officers involved to ensure they are aware of the failings identified and to prevent similar failings in future.
• The Council has agreed to remind officers dealing with approaches from people requiring housing assistance that they must consider whether there is reason to believe they may be homeless or threatened with homelessness, and where there is, they must make enquiries to see whether they owe them any duty under Part 7 of the Housing Act.
• The Council has agreed to remind officers dealing with approaches from people requiring housing assistance that they must consider whether there is reason to believe they may be homeless, eligible for assistance and have a priority need, and where there is, they must secure interim accommodation.

Case Ref: 22 011 865 Category: Environment and regulation Sub Category: Antisocial behaviour

• The Council will amend the Council’s leaflets ‘Anti-socialBehaviour: Help and advice for residents in Birmingham’ and ‘What you can do tostop antisocial behaviour’ by including in them information on the CommunityTrigger process and contact details for making an application. The Council shouldprovide us with evidence this has happened.

Case Ref: 22 011 528 Category: Housing Sub Category: Homelessness

• The Council has agreed to remind housing officers to carry out affordability assessments before placin people in temporary accommodation. The Council's letter offering should set out its reasons for considering the accommodation is suitable, including its reasons for deciding it is affordable. It should remind housing officers this is the Council’s responsibility and not the responsibility of housing providers.

Case Ref: 22 009 469 Category: Children's care services Sub Category: Fostering

• Issue children social care staff with guidance to ensure they keep minutes for meetings and records of correspondence about children’s care planning and statutory complaints, and these are added to case files.
• Review its policies and procedures to ensure social workers write a handover summary for each case they hold when they leave, and these are reviewed by the supervising manager. If staff leave unexpectedly, the supervising manager should write the summary on review of the case.