Agenda item

Cabinet is invited to consider a report on a report in the public interest, published by the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman (LGSCO) in relation to Croydon Council.

RESOLVED: To

1.1.         Consider the public interest report dated 23 June 2022 and the recommendations made by the Local Government & Social Care Ombudsman (LGSCO) in relation to Croydon Council set out in Appendix 1.

The full list of recommendations can be found in section 6 of this report.

1.2.         Accept the findings and agree the recommendations set out in the public interest report;

1.3.         Endorse the actions taken by the Council and note the steps, progress and timeline to implement the recommendations set out in section 7 of this report.

1.4.         Adopt the report as the Council’s formal response under section 31 of the Local Government Act 1974 to be communicated to the Ombudsman; and

1.5.         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.

Cabinet considered a report, which documented that, on 19 April 2022, the LGSCO had written to the Council’s Chief Executive, Katherine Kerswell, to confirm that after consideration of a complaint it had received, it had decided to issue its findings as a public interest report.

It was reported that the LGSCO considered the following six criteria when deciding whether to issue a public interest report:

i)               Recurrent faults (for example, the organisation keeps making similar mistakes)

ii)             Significant fault, injustice or remedy (by scale or the number of people affected)

iii)           Non-compliance with an Ombudsman’s recommendation (it has not agreed or has not carried out their recommendations)

iv)           A high volume of complaints about a subject

v)             A significant topical issue

vi)           Systemic problems and/or wider lessons (for example, problems with how the organisation does things that if not put right are likely to affect others, and this is an opportunity for others to learn).

In the case before Cabinet this evening, the reasons for issuing the report were:

i)               The significance of the fault, injustice or remedy

ii)             A significant topical issue

iii)           Systemic problems and/or wider lessons (for example, problems with how the organisation did things that if not put right were likely to affect others, and that this was an opportunity for others to learn).

It was reported that the complainant, referred to as Miss X, had complained that the Council had failed to provide her with suitable accommodation after it had accepted a duty to house her in 2014 and had not given her the correct priority under its housing allocation scheme.

Miss X said that the Council should have found permanent accommodation for her by now and that the temporary accommodation it had provided was not suitable as she was living in overcrowded housing and this was affecting her mental health.

The report also contained the statutory report of the Council’s Monitoring Officer, which was triggered as a result of the contents of the LGSCO report and outlined the Council’s statutory response required.

The Executive Mayor said that this was yet another example of the challenges facing the Council’s housing service following the maladministration of the previous Administration. He said that, despite many staff doing their best to support families, adequate processes were not in place to prevent this kind of situation developing.

He agreed the recommendations in the report and, in addition, apologised to Miss X on behalf of the Council for the situation she and her children were left in.

Accordingly, having considered the public interest report dated 23 June 2022 and the recommendations made by the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman (LGSCO) in relation to Croydon Council, as set out in Appendix 1 to the report (the full list of recommendations could be found in Section 6 to the report), the Executive Mayor, in Cabinet RESOLVED that:

1.            The findings be accepted, and the recommendations be agreed, as set out in the public interest report.

2.            The actions taken by the Council be endorsed and the steps, progress and timeline to implement the recommendations, as set out in Section 7 to the report, be noted.

3.            The report be adopted as the Council’s formal response under Section 31 of the Local Government Act 1974, to be communicated to the Ombudsman.

4.            The report be adopted 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.