So how about asking your Whitehall mate to give them more money, Guvnor Gove?

Is ‘Our Waverley’ becoming a punching bag for  Secretary of State Michael Gove?

The Housing Secretary of State has written to Waverley Borough Council chastising it after the housing ombudsman decreed it had committed…

“a severe administration failing.”

It has now apologised for the “unreasonable delay” in responding to an application by the father of a disabled son to make adaptations to his council home. 

Despite Waverley receiving more calls for disabled facilities than it can fund!

At a June council meeting, councillors were told by officers they were receiving increasing referrals from private and hospital OTs trying to arrange work, including disabled adaptions to enable clients to get back home from hospital. You can read it in the link below.

Waverley receives more calls for disabled facilities than it can fund

The family was left waiting for 18 months for the necessary work, and in the end, the father did the work himself.

In a blistering letter to Tom Horwood, the  CEO of Waverley & Guildford Councils, Mr Gove said:

“You failed to take account of how important the work was to this family. This is deeply disappointing.”

I have been clear that social housing residents must be able to put their trust in their landlords to provide decent homes and deal with complaints effectively”

I expect the changes you are implementing to make a significant difference in the service you deliver to your residents. I will be taking a personal interest in how your organisation continues to deliver its responsibilities.

Waverley has said it is taking steps to improve the application process and accepted that its communication could have been improved.

It said it had learned valuable lessons from this case and, as requested by the ombudsman, was in the process of carrying out a comprehensive review of its policies and procedures.

As part of this review, the council is conducting interviews with residents to gather feedback on its policy.

Here is a post we made In June year.

Waverley receives more calls for disabled facilities than it can fund