A council launched a consultation of its intentions to introduce a huge extension of its licensing scheme has been torn to shreds over its own pathetic record as a social landlord.

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Labour controlled Birmingham council announced the consultation in July and intending to expand its current HMO Licensing scheme.

The council proposes that an Additional Licensing scheme which will cover around 12,000 PRS properties in Birmingham’s 69 wards for a five year term.

Currently its existing compulsory licensing scheme covers only 4,000 larger properties housing five or more tenants.

However it’s social housing department has been found to be far from dutiful in its lack of action after being found guilty of ‘severe maladministration’ over considerable delays in repairing a water leak, and due the findings will consequently undergo a wider investigation because of “other cases of concern.”

The Housing Ombudsman discovered that the council had not even offered any form of compensation to the unfortunate resident affected by the leak, who suffered extreme distress and inconvenience by the council’s apathy in dealing with the major issue.

It has come to light the resident, a leaseholder, had contacted the council reporting a “high volume leak” which was causing serious damp and mould issues throughout their home and her family’s health was suffering because of this.

Despite five repair orders being raised to solve the water leak, the council failed to undertake the necessary work and finally it fell to the water company to resolve the issue, four months after the resident first reported the problem to the council.

The Housing Ombudsman issued an order to the landlord (council) to immediately offer their apologies to the tenant and compensate her to the tune of £800 however it didn’t end there, as the ombudsman also had other serious issues with the council’s compensation and complaint-handling procedures (or lack of) in other cases. The ombudsman is now starting a wider investigation to find out if the council’s handling of such issues is down to systematic failings within the department.

However to make things worse for the council, housing minister Eddie Hughes has written to the authority letting it know he is taking a personal interest in the result of the investigation to decide on the council’s future role as a social landlord.

Birmingham council has now apologised to the resident and it is now working alongside a repairs contractor to vastly improve processes.

It has also stated that its It adds that its compensation policy and procedures have been reviewed to award compensation to residents for inconvenience and distress and caused by past service failures and will be fit for purpose if there are any further cases.

A statement says: “We value our relationship with the Housing Ombudsman Service and welcome the opportunity to learn from the concerns which have been highlighted in their consideration of this case.

“The lessons learnt are being used to develop service improvements which will benefit all our residents.”

Richard Merrick of PIMS,said; “As usual with council departments’ failures there is always  a ready baked statement of ‘lessons have been learnt’. If a private landlord had shown the same amount of disregard to a tenant’s problem, the compensation could have run into many thousands and a possible ban from letting properties.”