Issue - meetings

Cabinet Member: Cabinet Member for Homes, Councillor Patricia Hay-Justice

Officer: Interim Director of Finance, Investment & Risk, Chris Buss

Key decision: no

The Leader of the Council delegated authority to the Cabinet to make the following decisions:

RESOLVED: To approve the contents of the Housing Complaints Self Assessment, as per Appendix 1 of the report, in order for the assessment to be publicised on the Local Authority website.

This item was taken as the second substantive at the Cabinet meeting.

The Cabinet Member for Homes (Councillor Patricia Hay-Justice) informed Cabinet that the Housing Ombudsman introduced a new complaint handling code in July 2020 which required all councils to conduct a self-assessment by 31 December 2020. The council had completed the self-assessment in November 2020, however it was not presented to Cabinet and published on the council’s website as was required by the Housing Ombudsman.

Members were informed that the self-assessment which had been completed in November 2020 had been updated to incorporate additional improvements and actions taken following the incidents at Regina Road. The Interim Executive Director of Housing (Alison Knight) advised Members that the self-assessment covered up until December 2020, with some additional information, however a full reassessment was required to reflect the Housing Improvement Plan. The new self-assessment would be taken to scrutiny later that year and would include data from 2020/21.

Concerns were raised by the Shadow Cabinet Member for Homes (Councillor Lynne Hale) in terms of the accuracy of the information provided. It was noted that it was a hybrid assessment, as it had been completed in the previous year and had been updated following the Ark report, and that a full reassessment was required. The Shadow Cabinet Member, however, expressed concern that it felt too soon for the council to conduct a self-assessment as she felt there was insufficient evidence. It was noted that paragraph 4.6 of the Housing Ombudsman Code stated the Ombudsman may require sight of the evidence used, but it was felt that there was no evidence.

It was noted that the Ark report had identified failings in the management of data and complaint handling, and so the Shadow Cabinet Member queried how the council knew the number of complaints received the outcomes of those complaints. To that end, the Shadow Cabinet Member queried what data had been used and stated that it would be helpful for the evidence to be set out in the report.

In response, the Leader of the Council (Councillor Hamida Ali) highlighted that the report was retrospective and contained data up until December 2020 and that a full reassessment would be undertaken. The Cabinet Member for Homes reiterated that the report was retrospective, but agreed that evidence should be added to the report in future.

The Leader of the Council delegated authority to the Cabinet to make the following decisions:

RESOLVED: To approve the contents of the Housing Complaints Self Assessment, as per Appendix 1 of the report, in order for the assessment to be publicised on the Local Authority website.