A Borough in Breakdown: Housing Failures, Safeguarding Gaps and the Collapse of Sandwell’s “Customer Journey”

A Borough in Breakdown: Housing Failures, Safeguarding Gaps and the Collapse of Sandwell’s “Customer Journey”

Sometimes it takes just one case to expose a system that isn’t working. A recent situation involving a vulnerable Sandwell resident has now blown open a far bigger truth: the council’s housing, safeguarding, neighbourhood and customer-contact systems are creaking, disconnected and failing the very people they are supposed to protect.

This is no longer about one individual — this is about a pattern that is now impossible to ignore. The story simply triggered what many of us have suspected for years.
#SandwellCouncil #HousingCrisis

The “Customer Journey” Fantasy vs. The Reality Residents Face

Sandwell’s leadership loves its corporate language — Customer Journey, Improvement Journey, Customer Experience Strategy. They’ve held Scrutiny reviews, internal deep dives, launched new telephony systems, pushed MySandwell, and declared themselves “modern and responsive”.

But what are people actually experiencing on the ground?

• Phone calls not answered
• Vulnerable residents passed between departments
• Temporary accommodation with minimal support
• No access to belongings when people need them most
• Officers working remotely and virtually invisible
• Rigid processes with no humanity or common sense

If this is the Customer Journey, it’s a journey straight into frustration, distress and neglect.
#CustomerJourney #ServiceFailure

Governance “Improvements That Never Reached the Frontline

Grant Thornton’s review, government commissioners, “improvement plans”, and all sorts of glowing progress reports have been pushed out over the last few years.

And yet here we are — faced with:

• poor communication,
• siloed departments,
• unsafe decision-making,
• and vulnerable residents left without dignity or support.

Governance is not fixed until the frontline is fixed.
Sandwell has focused on tidying the paperwork while ignoring the human consequences.
#Governance #BestValue

Housing, Adult Social Care and Safeguarding: A System Working in Isolation

What is painfully clear is that Sandwell’s key services are not talking to each other:

• Housing focuses on policy, process and gatekeeping
• Adult Social Care waits for referrals that never arrive
• Safeguarding is treated as a last resort
• Neighbourhood Teams are barely present across the borough

Residents who are elderly, disabled, bereaved, homeless or digitally excluded find themselves lost between departments that simply don’t communicate.
#SafeguardingFail #AdultSocialCare

Leadership Instability and Constant Restructures Have Damaged the Council Beyond Recognition

Over recent years, Sandwell has been through:

• constant changes in directors
• senior managers leaving or shifting roles
• repeated restructures across Housing, Customer Services and Neighbourhoods
• homeworking arrangements that reduce accountability
• disappearing local presence and fewer named officers
• redesign after redesign of customer-contact systems

These changes didn’t stabilise services — they destabilised them.

Every restructure wipes out knowledge.
Every management change breaks continuity.
Every home-working arrangement disconnects staff from reality.

The result is a council where no one seems to know who is responsible for what — and residents pay the price.
#RestructureChaos #LeadershipFailure

Tenant Engagement Structures That Cannot Challenge the Council

Sandwell proudly points to SCIPS, TRAs, tenant panels and “engagement frameworks”. But the truth is:

• too many groups rely on council funding,
• too many are dependent on officer goodwill,
• too many fear losing support if they criticise too loudly.

This is not independent scrutiny. It is managed participation.

And the residents who most need representation — the vulnerable, the digitally excluded, those in temporary accommodation, those dealing with bereavement or eviction — remain voiceless in these official forums.
#TenantVoice #SCIPS

The Breakdown of Humanity, Dignity and Common Sense

Strip away the strategies and policies. Look at the simple truth:

Residents who need help are not getting it.

They are being processed, not supported.
Handled, not helped.
Recorded, not respected.

Humanity is missing.
Dignity is optional.
Common sense is nowhere to be found.

This is not what a “compassionate borough” looks like.
#HumanityMatters #DignityForAll

A Citizen Investigation Begins

The recent case that triggered this article isn’t unique — it’s simply the one that shone a light on deeper cracks. The failures are structural, cultural and long-standing. They run through:

• Housing allocations
• Temporary accommodation
• Safeguarding
• Adult Social Care
• Neighbourhood teams
• Customer contact
• Leadership and governance
• Engagement structures

This is no longer about one story.
This is a borough-wide issue that demands explanation, accountability and reform.

A formal citizen-led investigation has now begun — because if the council won’t challenge itself, residents will.
#Accountability #CitizenInvestigation

Scrutiny Must Step Up — Now

Scrutiny exists to hold power to account. It is time for them to stop nodding along to officer presentations and start digging into:

• how vulnerable residents are actually treated
• how bereavement and non-successor cases are handled
• why safeguarding is repeatedly missed
• why communication is collapsing
• how many people are falling through gaps in temporary accommodation
• how restructures and leadership churn have damaged services
• whether engagement bodies are genuinely independent
  #Scrutiny #LocalDemocracy

Because if Scrutiny won’t challenge the system, then the system remains broken.

Let's hope Melvin gets the help and support he needs.