Purpose

On the 27th June, the Local
Government and Social Care Ombudsman (LGSCO) service issued a
public report under the Local Government Act 1974 s30(1)) in
respect of significant stress and upset caused to an applicant (to
be known as Mr Y and his two sisters X and Z) as a result of the
failure of the Housing Needs Service to properly administer a
homelessness application submitted by Mr Y.
 
The purpose of this report is
to advise Cabinet of the LGSCO findings and recommendations, and to
set out the actions taken to date and that the service propose to
take to address the issues identified in the report. 1.3 The report
also emphasises the full apology made to Mr Y and his sisters (Ms X
and Z) for the stress and injustice this poor service
caused.

Content

For the reasons set out in the
report and appendix, the Executive Mayor in Cabinet, AGREED
to:
 
2.1 Note the LGSCO findings and
recommendations in respect of Mr Y
 
2.2 To endorse the full apology
given to Mr Y and agree the measures set out in Section 5 of the
report which includes actions which are already
underway.
 
2.3 To agree the actions
proposed to improve complaints performance within the Housing
department in the action plan set out in Section 5
 
2.4 To adopt the report as the
Executive’s formal response as required by section 5A of the
Local Government and Housing Act 1989 for distribution to all
Members and the Monitoring Officer.