Concern over care leavers' waits for repair work on council-run homes in Wigan

During the inaugural meeting of the corporate parenting board at Wigan Council, chairman Coun Laura Flynn expressed her concern at how care leavers living in council-run housing were not being seen as a priority for repair work.

Jacqui Hardman, service lead children in care and care leavers, explained the team had identified that when a ticket was raised for a void or repair to a home, there was no indicator to inform them it was a care leaver and so it was not being prioritised.

With 92 people approaching 17 who will be in need of accommodation, this was something the housing team was urgently trying to address, the meeting at Wigan Town Hall heard.

This comes in the wake of a motion passed by full council in December to ensure children in care and care leavers were not discriminated against.

Coun Jenny Bullen’s motion was successful to make care-experienced a protected characteristic in the equality assessment.

“We are working on making sure there is a marker so they get priority status for things like housing and care,” Ms Hardman told the board. “What happens is that communication is not working as effectively as it could in indicating who is in care and who is not.

“We have people in IT working on that and there is acknowledgement that there are areas that are not working as well as they could be. The marker on the system is a relatively quick fix I am told.”

Communication in the system was an issue when it came to indicating care leavers, with some instances of housing officers being informed a couple of days beforehand that a care leaver required accommodation.

Providing a reason for these delays for young people, a report stated that general repairs were taking months due to recruitment issues across housing, but also the availability of properties was having a huge impact.

Despite this negative point, the board heaped praise on the varying teams for their work in regard to promoting children in care’s voices.