Ombudsman complaint: Calderdale Council admits 'it made mistakes' after failing to support vulnerable homeless man

The council has admitted it “made mistakes” responding to the housing or social care needs of the man whose sister complained to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman.

She said she experienced significant distress when her brother lived in unsuitable bed and breakfast accommodation without the appropriate care, and she was not consulted or updated regularly enough on issues affecting her brother’s life.

The council has acknowledged it did not maintain enough contact with the woman, and it missed opportunities to support her vulnerable brother because of a lack of communication between its adult social care and housing services.

The ombudsman considered the complaint and made improvement recommendations.

A report being discussed at the council’s cabinet meeting on Monday, September 11 outlines the action the council has already taken to meet those recommendations.

Councillor Josh Fenton-Glynn, Calderdale Council’s cabinet member for Adult Services and Wellbeing, apologised on behalf of the council.

“We made mistakes which we sincerely regret,” he said.

"We are deeply sorry for the significant distress and impacts caused for both the complainant and her late brother, and we have sent her a formal apology.

“We are already taking proactive steps to make sure these mistakes don’t happen again and to implement the ombudsman’s recommendations.

“We take our adult social care and housing support responsibilities very seriously, and will use the lessons learned in this case to improve the way we protect vulnerable people in future.

“We accept that the service we provided in this case didn’t meet our high standards, and that our communication with the complainant, and between our housing and adult social care services, should have been better.

“We have delivered some new training, and more is planned, to ensure staff in each service area work together effectively to meet people’s social care and housing needs.

"We have done a full audit of the case to learn from it and to inform further training for staff, and we have implemented new internal procedures and guidance.”

The cabinet meeting will be held at Halifax Town Hall from 3pm. The meeting can also be viewed online at https://calderdale.public-i.tv/core/portal/home .