Case Ref: 24 014 229 Category: Housing Sub Category: Homelessness

• The Council will send a reminder to officers dealing with homeless applications of the need to ensure when a homeless applicant raises concerns about the suitability of the property offered to them the Council follow the review process. That should include consideration of whether the review is out of time. The Council should then write to the person to explain its decision.

Case Ref: 24 013 692 Category: Housing Sub Category: Homelessness

• improve logging and responding to complaints
• ensure housing solutions officers maintain contact with housing applicants

Case Ref: 24 011 887 Category: Housing Sub Category: Homelessness

• The Council should also remind its officers of the distinction between its duties under Part VI and Part VII of the Housing Act 1996.

Case Ref: 24 010 877 Category: Housing Sub Category: Allocations

• The Council agreed to review its processes to identify why it failed to make the decision that it did not owe the complainant the main housing duty sooner and take steps to ensure this failure cannot be repeated in the future.
• The Council agreed to remind officers of the need to explore, clarify, and act on contact from applicants which raises issues of suitability to establish whether they wish for a suitability review outside of the complaints process.
• The Council agreed to review why there was a delay responding to the complaint and act to ensure it cannot be repeated on future cases.

Case Ref: 24 008 943 Category: Housing Sub Category: Homelessness

• The Council was at fault for delays in reaching decisions on the complainant's application and for not offering interim accommodation. The Council has agreed to:provide guidance to relevant officers to ensure they decide whether to end the prevention duty after 56 days, and if so issue a formal decision with review rights;and to ensure they notify applicants if they decide the applicant is not homeless and set out their review and appeal rights.
• The Council has agreed to ensure referrals to the medical officer are made promptly on receipt of additional information which may affect an applicant’s homelessness status and priority need.

Case Ref: 24 008 364 Category: Education Sub Category: School transport

• Remind all officers who carry out transport appeals, and those who send decision letters, of the requirement to consider all the evidence presented and properly record and evidence how it reached the decision, in line with statutory guidance.
• Remind officers that applications on SEN /disability / mobility grounds must consider health, safety, sensory and behavioural difficulties and not just physical mobility problems when deciding if a child is able to walk to school.

Case Ref: 24 002 632 Category: Housing Sub Category: Allocations

• the Council has agreed to remind all reviewofficers to make sure they refer to the correct version of the housingallocations policy and not use out of date review letter templates

Case Ref: 24 000 008 Category: Adult care services Sub Category: Domiciliary care

• The Council will consider why the miscommunication that led to the Council's delay in arranging a new care provider for the complainant's mother occurred. The Council will identify any steps that are needed to prevent the fault happening again in future. It will send the Ombudsman details of those actions, when they will be completed by, and who is responsible for them.

Case Ref: 23 017 512 Category: Education Sub Category: Special educational needs

• The Council will share the Ombudsman's decision and a copy of our focus report Out of school, out of sight? with relevant officers, to emphasise the Council's section 19 duties and identify wider learning.

Case Ref: 23 013 867 Category: Adult care services Sub Category: Charging

• The Council will remind relevant staff of the importance of giving as much information as possible about the likely costs of adult social care at the time the care is arranged and keeping a record of the advice and information given. This should include explaining that, if a person moves into residential care, the value of their property will be considered when deciding how much they should pay towards the cost of their care, which is likely to mean they will need to pay the full cost of their care.