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Birmingham City Council receives 500 housing waiting list applications every week, ombudsman report reveals
Birmingham City Council receives 500 applications from households looking to join its housing waiting list every week, it has been revealed as part of an investigation into the council by the local authority watchdog.
The figure emerged from the council’s response to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman’s investigation into one family’s complaint about delays surrounding its application for housing.
The local authority, which is the largest in Europe, explained to the ombudsman that it received 500 applications a week from those looking to join its housing register.
Nearly half of all applicants were eligible to join, meaning 225 families were joining every week, according to the council.
The response also revealed that it was currently taking the council an average of 22 weeks to consider an application. This is nearly four times higher than the six-week target for councils.
In the case of the complaint that uncovered Birmingham’s issues, the family had waited six months, around 26 weeks, for its application to be considered. The investigation found that the council should have backdated the family’s position on the waiting list to the day it applied, which would have placed it much higher on the priority list, but this was not done.
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Birmingham City Council apologised for the issues faced by the family and agreed to backdate the application from the moment the family first applied. However, it added that the case highlighted the pressure the council was under to meet the housing need in the city.
Michael King, the ombudsman, said he understood that many council housing departments were under pressure due to demand outstripping supply, and in a lot of areas this was creating a backlog.
However, he said: “Councils need to ensure they are providing the right advice at the right time to families to try to either prevent families becoming homeless, or give advice and support with other housing solutions that may be available to them.
“While we can’t say this family has been disadvantaged by the council’s delay in dealing with applications, we are concerned potentially thousands of other families in the city might have been.”
As part of its powers, the ombudsman can make recommendations to councils to improve their services. Following consultation, the council has agreed to produce an action plan setting out how it will get processing of applications down to four to six weeks. In addition to this, the council will review its housing allocation policy to ensure delays do not affect an applicant’s priority band date, and agreed to address complaints received from other applicants regarding delays to their applications.
A statement from Birmingham said: “We apologise to the complainant and will ensure that the ombudsman’s recommendations are carried out in full.
“We have already taken steps, including additional resources, to address the time that it has been taking in order to assess applications to the housing register.
“We are pleased to say that those waiting times are reducing, and there is a plan in place to bring these in line with our service standards.”
The revelations from Birmingham come on the day that a report from the Local Government Association revealed the number of families on council housing waiting lists was set to hit two million, while one in 10 households had been stuck on the list for five years or more.
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