A resident was threatened with having her door broken down for a gas safety check while she was away looking after sick mother, council papers have revealed.
The tenant had told the council her neighbour would let the gas engineer into her home while she was away – and a housing officer even telephoned the neighbour to confirm the arrangement the day of the inspection.
The incident was detailed in a report to Brighton and Hove City Council’s housing management panel by Hollingdean Residents’ Association.
The report said: “In spite of this, the council sent nine people around, including police officers, two enforcement officers, two gas engineers, two electrical engineers, a housing officer, and a locksmith.
“It was agreed that the council took disproportionate action in this situation, and was unnecessarily heavy-handed in their approach.
“It clearly hadn’t been communicated within the council that alternative arrangements had been made and the property would be accessible.”
Residents’ representatives from council estates in the north of the city have asked what will the council do to prevent such an incident from happening again, in a question submitted to the housing management panel for the area, which met today (Tuesday 18 November).
A response from the council stated there is a legal requirement to carry out gas safety inspections and if workers cannot gain access then relevant services are used, however police attendance is not routine.
This is insane, and council leader Bella had the gall to call Acorn ‘disgusting’ last week after they lobbied councillors about the huge hike in their use of bailiffs between 2023/24 – 2024/25 a jump to over 11,000 from around 5,000. To have people arrive at your home to try and force entry must be terrifying. Disproportionate enforcement and this type of heavy-handed action, whether gaining entry for a gas inspection, or trying to collect council tax debts from someone in financial difficulty should be avoided at all costs. In this case it’s alarming how the situation escalated without different council teams talking to each other before they called in the police.
Maybe the police should take the council to task for wasting police time. I remember the dreadful domestic abuse case 5 or so years ago where Sussex Police ignored the reports from someone being stalked and they charged her with wasting police time, before she was subsequently murdered. If they charged her, surely they must take action against the council for clear maladministration and sloppiness which led to their offices attending a situation when it was not necessary for them to be there!
The FOI Acorn are quoting is seven months out of date and reflects enforcement levels before the major policy shift in April. It doesn’t describe the current approach, and it certainly doesn’t justify how Acorn conduct themselves.
Coming back to the actual article, I agree this was heavy handed and seems to stem from poor communication between council teams, which is something the council has been criticised for repeatedly. Police often attend if there’s any historic risk marker on a property, and they usually stand down once it’s clear there’s no threat. We won’t know the specifics here, but it’s a possibility worth keeping in mind.
The real question is whether a proper stepped approach was followed, because having a baseball team of staff turn up at your door is stressful for anyone.
Stooping to making unfounded accusations about the character of the resident in your relentless attempt to defend the Labour council, is not a good look Benjamin.
It’s actually quite obscene for you to put baseless ideas in people’s minds, when those who do know the details (the panel) make clear the situation was handled disproportionately by the council. A new low in your comments.
It’s more an indication of your reading comprehension and intelligence if you think the word possibility is the same as accusation, or that agreement with Cathy is a defense of council’s actions. Not your smartest comment, Bill.
Can you direct me via email link to more information about the ‘major policy shift’ as I can’t see any details of what this actually entails. The council trumpet every piece of tarmac they lay and every communal bin they have removed graffiti from, so it’s strange to not be able to locate what the different approach is.
I also have not seen any explanation from council about why, when the council said in October 2024 after lobbying from Acorn then and reassurances that the council would look at alternative enforcement options, that bailiff use doubled that year and bailiffs were used more than 5,000 times more than the previous year. Even if council processes are slow and it takes time to implement a new policy, if councillors believe there are serious flaws in existing policies which they believe to be harmful, they could have ensured that they did not INCREASE bailiff use, after they gave assurances about taking a different approach.
Always happy to explain and show sources. Here’s the link: https://democracy.brighton-hove.gov.uk/documents/s206226/Corporate%20Debt%20Policy.pdf –
The FOI that Acorn quotes only runs to September 2024, so it captures the final months of the previous administration’s policy and misses the change that took effect in April. The spike happened before implementation, not after. That does not make the spike ideal, but it does explain the timing.
The Scrutiny papers from later in 2024 and early 2025 explain that a large proportion of those cases were legacy accounts already deep in the enforcement cycle at the point the new policy was being drafted, so those are more likely simply existing enforcements, not a deepening of usage, not all of them mind, but the FOI request wasn’t particularly detailed to tell either way.
It’s why I think Acorn have either been disingenuous in their use of outdated data, or incompetent in its application. Although, I can see how the raw numbers can be sensationalised, and how the fact that enforcement action ≠ bailiffs usage despite being portrayed that way. It was pointless arguing for a change that had already happened. Far better to ask how has the numbers changed since the policy update – far more useful, right?
Thanks for sharing the link Benjamin, although it is as I thought and the ‘revised’ policy is just minor tweaks in wording rather than any ‘major policy shift’ in practice.
Over 14 months ago the council were saying that they weren’t using Enforcement Agents for households in receipt of benefits and they haven’t done that for many years. The council have also been saying for a long time that their contracts focus on ‘social value’ and also identifying vulnerability. So having now seen the revisions, and knowing what was in the council’s previous policy and comparing to the ‘revised’ one, it’s just very similar generic council speak, with no real reference to how they will monitor the contract and outcomes in reality.
No wonder Acorn thought the council were just giving lip service! I’m sorry to see you being rude again about people Benjamin, it does really lower any argument you try to make.
I’ve had plenty of interactions with certain people on here; I’m short with people when they are just being bad faith actors or performative for the nth time.
But you are right that many of the principles were already in place the change wasn’t so much in the wording as in how the process is triaged. The major shift really is operational. Enforcement is now internally reviewed before referral, and vulnerable cases are automatically flagged for alternative recovery. That wasn’t consistently applied before. That’s a major shift.
Still doesn’t negate the fact that Acorn’s platform is based on out-of-date data, and irrelevant to their argument; the fact remains that there is no public data available to show – either way – what impact the change has had. So it is absolutely right to criticise Acorn Brighton for the disservice they did to themselves and more importantly to tenants with their performance.
I am the tenant rep who took this incident to North Area Panel
I am also the neighbour who let heating engineer into the property
I am concerned about council taking unnecessary and heavy handed action.
I am also worried that council money was wasted on this incident
I had agreed with the housing team to let heating engineer into property and stay there until job was finished.
Resident is a lady living alone and is a kind and gentle person . If she had been at home.e it would have s ared the heck out of her.
I was glad to help but this sort of heavy handedness and wasted finances should not be happening in a civilised society. We DO NOT live in communist Russia .
Ian Beck (secretary Hollingdean Residents Association)
You’re a good guy, Ian.
Just disgraceful, sounds very much like bullying to me on the councils part,I have a letter when my boiler service is due, and it is an almost bullying tone to it.
Great – well done Ian for speaking out and escalating this awful case, and also good to see you put Benjamin right about the unfounded dissection of the tenants’ character and his deflecting the blame away from the council’s dreadful handling of things onto her.
I haven’t made a single assertion about the person’s character at all. I made a suggestion there may have been a history marker at the property, which could be aggressive behaviour from any source, certainly; or a safeguarding issue where it makes sense for police to be present to ensure the safety of the resident, for a variety of reasons which are too long to list here.
Ask questions if you’re unsure in future, Cathy.
Benjamin, this lady has lived at the address for a few years. If there is a marker on the address is should have been removed by B.H.C.C. when they rented it to current tenant.
Why do the council always look around for someone else to blame rather than learn from mistakes .
I agree, great work Ian for correcting Benjamin. It seems he needs a little more educating on the topic in hand.
Once again Jeremy, it could have been a possibility, not a certainty, which is why it is not an assertion. It has nothing to do with education or being corrected. Ian’s additional context helps to further the idea is an unlikely scenario in this case.
And I agree that, if it existed (and that’s an important part of this sentence you should read carefully Jeremy, IF), it should have been reviewed and removed after a period of time, which is a standard process that happens. But that’s also not down to the council to decide, since those markers are typically on police dispatch systems, ambulance also has the same, independent systems that sometimes hold markers on properties which may be out-of-date. I have no idea if the council hold markers on their portfolio in the same way, you’d have to ask them.
And again, to reiterate, police presence could simply have been there to ensure the safeguarding and wellbeing of the resident for a variety of reasons, especially when a vulnerable person is subjected to forced entry. I did some extra reading around this since last, and learnt that Housing Ombudsman cases repeatedly note that forced entry without police present can expose the landlord to complaints about the way officers behaved. So bringing police could have very well been a protective measure for those conducting the check.
But ultimately, bringing the conversation back from a tangent, we’re all agreed that this was a failure of intradepartmental communication which resulted in this situation.
No doubt the mandatory ‘lessons will be learned’ excuse for this chaotic situation will be trotted out. Well … at least until the next time the situation repeats itself when the same pathetic excuse will be used again. Where is the accountability? Taxpayers are paying for this service which is very clearly NOT fit for service.
Yes I agree with Cathy B, this was out of all proportion and a further example of the overall incompetence of councils who sometimes should rightly be called “clowncils”. It’s similar to a school contacting Hertfordshire police because they didn’t like the WhatsApp messages 2 parents had sent. 6 police officers were sent to arrest them. Shameful, the authorising inspector should held to account. 1 officer with the old fashioned “words of advice” should have dealt with it.
Council ?? Says it all.
Did the Housing Officers concerned face disciplinary action and a performance management retraining programme?
Was the tenant compensated for the damage/trauma?
While there has always been incompetance, i believe council staff being allowed to work from home has a lot to answer for. Poor training, no supervision, less daily interaction with colleagues re casework knowledge exchange, less support, less accountability, staff able to log into Teams meetings and then go off and make a cup of tea without turning their camera or mic on, and tuning out to most of what they should be paying attention to. There is not helped by a large staff churn so that knowledge, experience and continuity are constantly being lost. All of which impacts detrimentally on the customer experience.They should report themselves to the Housing Regulator.
I agree with you those are all serious challenges in housing services.
Where I think the argument slips is the idea that hybrid working is the driver. There’s no evidence for that. Multiple datapoints show that high caseloads, legacy IT systems, unclear ownership of tasks and staff turnover are the main culprits. These problems long pre-date home working. It’s not because someone was on a laptop in the wrong building.
If anything, the right question is whether this was procedurally correct, and how communication is being improved so that arranged access isn’t ignored again.
You clearly work at the council, so maybe get of the website and go and do some work.
According to the Charlie Southall article, I “clearly” work for the newspaper, but that’s not right either! No, call me old-fashioned, but I just like to stick to what the evidence shows and discuss that rather than guessing motivations.
I was thinking the same thing.
You’d be surprised how often people decide I secretly work for whichever organisation they’re annoyed with that day. Some accused me of working for Reform once, I think that was the most insulted I’ve ever been, mainly because I know how to write in full sentences!
The Police are only allowed to work from home if they have been put onto light duties owing to illness or injury. It should be no different for council staff. They are there to serve the public as public servants and they cannot do that properly working from home in most roles. Most departments also scandalously refuse to answer phone calls after 1.30pm, yet are being paid full time hours for providing a part-time service.
Eh, sorry but the College of Policing explicitly supports remote and hybrid working, so that statement simply is not accurate I’m afraid, James.
The council just don’t care about anything all they want is money for doing nothing then when they want they waste it on silly things like the old steine area j.b Brighton
Different pots of money that don’t interact with each other, John.
Was it miscommunication between the council teams, or more a case of “we’ve been told what’s happening, but we’ll do our own thing anyway”? Having 9 people turn up at your front door is intimidating, threatening behaviour and completely unnecessary, when it could’ve been avoided.
Public servants?- err.err.err. ” To serve the public” same as councel employees- most contractors ive meet,polite,diligent about there work,and work assignments.they,are human beings,they have the same daily worries we all have. ( example- last night,someone explained they had,boiler problems- explained how to relight- pilot light- to contact repair desk,9.30? Am- will, contact myself to follow up.- ( from what ive observed,ie abuse to councel workers,at help desk- housing,no wonder there is a high turn over) servants indeed)-cannot comment,on other gas inspection- seems, lack of correct communication,escalated.” If there is something kind of ” marker,on tenant,or accom”- both tenant, and councel should work,to clear these discressances,for all tenants.servants indeed,” hold on there ,goes my bell agien,” yes dear tea, and crumpets,lighly toasted,butter and jam.
This is the road I moved into in 1953, just built full of lovely neighbours all helped each other in hard times, it ended in 1984 the council telling my recently widowed mother, she had no right to remain as the children had left home, and my father had died. She died shortly after. The councils behavior has not improved.
Succession rights for council housing are extremely pragmatic.
This is a grotesque waste of public funds, just another example of public money being wasted by officials on eye watering salaries paid out of public coffers!!! These sorts of incidents show exactly how incompetent management are and how no one ever holds them accountable. They get away with wasting money which could be spent in a million ways to improve the city!! This is another prime example that fully demonstrates “leadership” need replacing its as simple as that, they are incapable of managing public finances!!!
Is the back office at BHCC done by Capita?
Is this the Benjamin news channel by any chance ?
It’s a shame no one can voice there thoughts with out this happy grave dancer commenting on absolutely everyone topic .
Very disturbing individual.
When I called him out on data he gets your posts blocked deleted.
If he still thinks paternity fraud in Brighton isn’t the highest in the country perhaps he should walk in person up to the DNA office.
Apart from the fact they wouldn’t let him in
We’ve been over this a number of times now; commenters should reasonably expect to be challenged on a public forum. I’m interested in a wide range of topics and I’m perfectly happy for my own views to be interrogated in good faith. I’m sorry you find that inconvenient, but the last several times you’ve mentioned me it has been nothing but ad hominem remarks.
For clarity, I’ve never asked for a comment of yours to be removed. I vaguely remember some of the more phantasmagorical claims you made, so if anything disappeared, it was almost certainly moderated by the site, not by me.
As for the paternity claim, I’ll keep correcting it because you keep repeating it without evidence. We’re six or seven rounds into this, and nothing has changed. To restate the evidence clearly:
Peer reviewed studies on misattributed paternity put the general population rate at around 0.8 percent to 2 percent. The much higher figures you see online come from samples where paternity was already in dispute or from private DNA testing companies, which cannot be generalised to the public. There is no regional dataset in the UK that would allow anyone to say a particular area is “highest”, and no reputable academic source supports that claim. Even the old CSA data put the national discrepancy rate at about 0.2 percent, with no local breakdown at all.
Reading your replies is like reading the label on the back of a bleach bottle.
Just because you can’t Google it doesn’t mean it’s not true .
You copy and paste all your responses without reading the bigger picture .
I have suffered paternity fraud in Brighton. By a professional that I was dating and her colleagues that conspired .
More than happy to send you the fact finding hearing and police report .
Again you can’t Google it . And as with the DNA office that clarified something there not meant to talk about.
It’s a pity your not employed by Brighton and hove n . There must be a reason for that ?
And reading your replies is like drinking aforementioned bleach.
Again, no credible evidence suggests validity of any of your previous claims. That is the bigger picture. That is the national picture.
And again, I am not going to get into the details of your personal circumstances, tragic that they are.
Non-molestation orders have gone up by several hundred per cent since the legal aid changes in some districts,” he added.
NMOs work like injunctions and are designed to protect domestic abuse victims from further harm in emergency situations.
The charity stresses that they are useful in genuine cases of abuse, but is concerned that the way they are administered leaves them open to exploitation. For example
They are often granted in the absence of the person being accused of abuse (the respondent) and without accusations of domestic abuse being proven
The making of an order then also enables the complainant to draw on thousands of pounds in legal aid which can also be used in any subsequent family law cases
The respondent would not be automatically entitled to legal aid, however, and often has to represent themselves
The level of evidence required is fairly low and can relate to claims about verbal abuse, unwanted text messages or emails
In some regions of England and Wales the increase has been as much as 900%. In others there has been a 150% rise, according to information obtained by Families Need Fathers.
I could carry on revealing sources . My data was in 2018 . So your not far off from being out right wrong .
The others where bbc
Fathers for justice
American psychiatric journal regarding cluster b personalities within the family justice system
DNA diagnostics center regarding 30% of fathers requesting DNA testing are not the biological father.
Not long now until mandatory testing at birth .
So while you can nik pick on changing data . The general picture is not looking good in a corrupted family court.
Brighton being the highest with DNA fraud .
Perhaps spend your time asking more fathers to get tested .
We’re get a much more accurate story
Once again Rupert, none of what you have just pasted actually shows that “Brighton has the highest paternity fraud in the country”. The Families Need Fathers material is about NMOs. It talks about percentage increases in some court areas. It does not publish DNA results or a ranking of paternity “fraud” by town or city.
Likewise, the 30% figure from DNA Diagnostics is about a self-selecting group of men who already suspected a problem and paid for a test, something I have already explained above before you mentioned it. You cannot generalise that to the whole population any more than you can claim that 30% of all cars are broken because 40% of the cars at a garage need repairs.
The best evidence from population-based studies still puts misattributed paternity in the low single digits, and there is no national dataset that would allow anyone to say Brighton is “highest”. If you can point to a reputable, published source that actually shows city-by-city rates, I will happily read it, and stand corrected. Until then, I am going to keep correcting you whenever you present this as fact – because it is not.
That kind of behaviour is unacceptable, sending 9 people round to someone’s property is intimidating, threatening and could have been avoided, if the council had worked as a team.
In any other planet, someone (the manager responsible) would have got sacked. But unfortunately it’s the council so the councillors take the hit for shoddy management. Housing, environmental services, highways, they are all run by lifers who have been promoted way above ability due to time served. It’s impossible to get sacked by the council.
100% true
Sadly councils do this up and down the country. They give you a date between 8am and 4pm. Youre expected to take the full day off work for a 2 minute check. Very quick to break into your house if you are not there. If they were private landlords theyd be called cowboys, yet private landlords will give you a time. So who really is the cowboys?
Wish they will have that same energy when investigating abuse escalated of children or antisocial behaviour.
Quite
Orbit send Gas engineers to my flat, they come in and then bin the job off because they cant be bothered to move a few small boxes out of my cupboard, and then say i wasnt in, two years in a row i have been threatened with legal action for refusing access when I have been in every time. Every time I lodge a complaint and so far they have had to compensate me. I am an ex British Gas engineer, the last engineer that came round actually worked on my gas metre and then told Orbit I refused to let him in. Then because i had a few boxes in my gas cupboard I was then accused of being a hoarder. My flat is absolutley spotless.
in their defence, carrying out annual gas inspections and safety checks are a legal requirement for the council, if gas appliances are not subject to regular maintenance there is potential for many outcomes, the likely worst outcome being carbon monoxide poisoning for any residents or neighbours in adjoining properties. forced access is an expensive last resort. my understanding is that multiple efforts to carry out inspections are undertaken prior to the forced access. initially gas contractor will contact resident to agree convenient date and time for inspection, 99% of these appointments are acheived, if though, this is missed then further contact is made/attempted. if this fails a letter is hand delivered to residents property advising of potential for forced entry. if this fails then a second letter is hand delivered stating that in 7 days a forced entry will take place and a seal placed across the lock of main door to the property. if no response, a forced entry takes place. often resulting in finding a drug farm, a deceased resident, residents are on long holiday or for any other long term reason, say caring for an unwell relative. the end result though is the gas appliance is inspected and left in safe order.
And I would hope that this stepped process was undertaken in this instance, and if not, there are certainly questions to answer. The communication was clearly lacking here that needs to be improved.
Benji
I posted a while ago data I had compiled concerning family court findings .
I keep telling you that you won’t always find data on Google.
Try asking the DNA office to send you the statistics that they won’t publish.
And while your doing that get back to me on the findings of malpractice at the hospital that they won’t publish and why it’s under police investigation
The best evidence from population-based studies still puts misattributed paternity in the low single digits, and there is no national dataset that would allow anyone to say Brighton is “highest”. If you can point to a reputable, published source that actually shows city-by-city rates, I will happily read it, and stand corrected. Until then, I am going to keep correcting you whenever you present this as fact – because it is not.
when a man has reason to request a DNA paternity test in a family court or for child support purposes, there is a significant chance he is not the biological father, with rates often falling within or exceeding the 20% range.
Key Statistics
Family Court/Disputed Paternity Cases: Studies specifically looking at cases where paternity was already in dispute or court-mandated show that the man is often not the biological father.
A 2008 study of UK Child Support Agency (CSA) cases found that of those resolved with DNA testing, between 10% and 19% of mothers had misidentified the biological father.
A review of international studies on disputed paternity found the incidence of the man not being the father ranged from 17% to 33%, with a median of 26.9%.
Just to clarify for others reading, and as I’ve explained to you multiple times now, and happy to continue to correct you on, disputed-paternity cases aren’t representative of the general population. Peer-reviewed evidence puts misattributed paternity at low single digits, not twenty five percent. Court-ordered DNA tests naturally have a much higher rate because they’re the tiny subset where doubt already exists.
Benjamin
Have you ever seen good will hunting ?
It’s very popular because you remind us all of the chap at the bar scene.
Honestly I think your his brother
Oh, wow, recycling material from 2023, and from someone else? Yikes.
I’m glad you have reflected on the situation and I fully agree with you.
But you still have not responded when I simply asked how many children from the reported 250 migrant children missing in Brighton have been found and who was responsible?
when a man has reason to request a DNA paternity test in a family court or for child support purposes, there is a significant chance he is not the biological father, with rates often falling within or exceeding the 20% range.
Key Statistics
Family Court/Disputed Paternity Cases: Studies specifically looking at cases where paternity was already in dispute or court-mandated show that the man is often not the biological father.
A 2008 study of UK Child Support Agency (CSA) cases found that of those resolved with DNA testing, between 10% and 19% of mothers had misidentified the biological father.
A review of international studies on disputed paternity found the incidence of the man not being the father ranged from 17% to 33%, with a median of 26.9%.
Brighton is at 25% Benji
I think you owe a lot of fathers an apology
Just to clarify for others reading, and as I’ve explained to you multiple times now, and happy to continue to correct you on, disputed-paternity cases aren’t representative of the general population. Peer-reviewed evidence puts misattributed paternity at low single digits, not twenty five percent. Court-ordered DNA tests naturally have a much higher rate because they’re the tiny subset where doubt already exists.