Summary: We uphold Mr D’s complaints. The Council failed to act in line with sections 194 and188 of the Housing Act 1996 and with sections 9 and 42 of the Care Act 2014 when dealing with Mr D. The Council also failed to consider the need to make reasonable adjustments to its services. This was fault and caused avoidable Mr D anxiety. To remedy the injustice, the Council has agreed to: take a homeless application, consider whether it needs to provide interim accommodation, carry out a social care assessment and establish whether there is any current risk of abuse to Mr D in Westminster before agreeing with him whether he wishes to be referred to another area’s safeguarding adults team or to the police. Mr D will need to attend the Council’s offices for appointments with housing and social care staff and he will need to sign consent forms.

The complaint

1. The complainant, who I refer to as Mr D, complains Westminster City Council (the Council) failed to support him with housing, care and support and safeguarding issues. He also says it discriminated against him because he is disabled.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word fault to refer to these. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint. I refer to this as ‘injustice’. If there has been fault which has caused an injustice, we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)
3. If we are satisfied with a council’s actions or proposed actions, we can complete our investigation and issue a decision statement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 30(1B) and 34H(i), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

4. I considered:
• Mr D’s complaint to us
• The Council’s response to his complaint
• Documents described later in this statement
• Comments from the parties on a draft of this statement.

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What I found

Relevant law and guidance

5. If a council has reason to believe a person may be homeless or threatened with homelessness, it must take a homeless application and make inquiries. The threshold for taking an application is low. The person does not have to complete a specific form of approach a particular council department. (Housing Act 1996, section 194 and Homelessness Code of Guidance, paragraphs 6.2 and 18.5)
6. A council must secure interim accommodation for applicants and their household if it has reason to believe they may be homeless, eligible for assistance and have a priority need. (Housing Act 1996, section 188)
7. Examples of applicants in priority need are:
• people with dependent children;
• pregnant women;
• people who are vulnerable due to serious health problems, disability or old age.
8. Public bodies, including councils, must make reasonable adjustments to ensure that people with disabilities can use public services as close as is reasonably possible to the standard offered to non-disabled people. (Equality Act 2010, section 20)
9. A council must carry out an assessment for any adult with an appearance of need for care and support. The assessment must be of the adult’s needs and how they impact on their wellbeing and the outcomes they want to achieve. It must also involve the individual and where appropriate their carer or any other person they might want involved. (Care Act 2014, section 9)
10. Once it has completed an assessment, the council must apply national eligibility criteria to decide if a person is eligible for care.
11. If a council has reasonable cause to suspect abuse, or a risk of abuse of an adult who needs care and support (whether or not it is meeting care and support needs), it must make whatever enquiries it thinks is necessary to decide whether any action should be taken to protect the adult. (Care Act 2014, section 42)
12. Guidance from the Association of Directors of Social Services in 2016, about safeguarding says the local authority in the area where the alleged abuse occurred/is occurring has the duty to make enquiries under section 42 of the Care Act 2014.
13. Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust runs a joint homelessness team. The website explains this is a community mental health service working with people who sleep rough in Westminster and who have a mental illness. It says people referred to the team will usually have had a history of admissions to hospital under the Mental Health Act and may have arrived from elsewhere in the UK. The joint assessment service, is part of the team and is commissioned by the Council’s housing options service to ‘help people who present as homeless and appear to be vulnerable in terms of their mental health.’

What happened

14. Mr D reports he is homeless. He has a GP in Westminster. The Council’s social care team received a referral from Mr D’s GP in May 2019. The referral form said Mr D had autism and suffered abuse. There were no details about the abuse. The GP said Mr D had asked for a referral to social services.
15. Mr D complained to the Council in July. He said he was a vulnerable adult and had received no response to a safeguarding referral.
16. The Council responded to Mr D’s complaint on 29 July. It said officers had referred him to the joint homelessness team, but the team ‘declined the safeguarding referral’ as his GP had not referred him to mental health services. The Council apologised for not telling Mr D the outcome of the referral to the joint homeless team. The Council also said it had been making enquiries about the safeguarding referral and said:
1. The GP had arranged an assessment with a mental health nurse. But Mr D had only attended one of the three appointments offered
2. The GP had referred Mr D to hospital for a health assessment.
3. There were two agencies who provided services for homeless people if they needed help with housing. The Council gave Mr D details of these services.
17. The Council told us that following the response to Mr D’s complaint, it arranged meetings with Mr D, his advocate, a complaints officer, a social worker and the complaints manager. Mr D did not turn up to two of these meetings. He attended a third meeting by phone. I summarise the minutes of that meeting below:
• The complaints manager said ‘social care and housing remits are separate and this group cannot advise on housing matters’
• The social care team would not be following up on a safeguarding investigation as the police were the lead and would make any adjustments if Mr D needed to attend the police station for an interview.
• Mr D said he was not proceeding with the police until social care had taken ‘basic steps dealing with his safeguarding concerns’. The complaints manager said there was no role for the Council as the allegations were not related to abuse in Westminster.
18. Mr D complained to us at the beginning of September. He said on the complaint form:
• He had been the victim of abuse ‘requiring a safeguarding response’ and was homeless without a shower and needed to care for recent surgical wounds from surgery due to abuse.
• He was extremely stressed and the perpetrators were enabled to abuse him. He wanted to the Council to put in place a safeguarding plan and to co-ordinate this with the police.
19. Mr D attended a charity for advice and support about homelessness on 24 September. The charity has links to the Council’s housing options team and was willing to refer Mr D there so the Council could assess his homelessness. An email from a worker at the charity says Mr D refused to sign a consent form to allow the charity to proceed. Mr D has not attended the charity since. The Council told me Mr D had not attended the housing options service offices either.
20. At the end of September, the complaints manager emailed Mr D. She summarised the minutes of the meeting in the previous paragraph. The complaints manager explained that as the abuse took place in an area outside Westminster, there was nothing further for the Council’s adult social care team to do and the police had confirmed this. She went on to advise Mr D to report the abuse to the police who would then refer the matter to the appropriate local authority where the allegations of abuse took place. The complaints manager explained if Mr D’s GP made a referral to adult social care for an assessment of his care and support needs, then the Council would ‘follow due process under the Care Act 2014.’
21. The Council’s view is that it accepts some fault in the way it dealt with Mr D but that it has been hampered by Mr D’s unwillingness to sign consent forms, give an address history or attend for appointments in person. It says Mr D has provided contact numbers for informal advocates, but without written consent, it cannot share information with the advocates or proceed with his case. The Council also commented:
• Mr D was offered 3 meetings with social care staff but he did not attend the first two and the last one he did not attend in person, but by phone
• Officers agreed an advocate as a reasonable adjustment, but staff still needed to meet Mr D in person to assess his social care needs and complete a homeless application
• Mr D communicated well by phone. If he had met the social work team, they would have been able to assess any specific communication needs such as needs around autism
• Mr D did not give specific details about the abuse and made references to his experiences in Wales, but he wanted to focus on his housing needs in Westminster because he said he was homeless.
• He had not given the police or the Council details about the abuse.

Was there fault?

Safeguarding

22. A key issue which is unclear in the Council’s records and in Mr D’s complaint to us is whether the abuse Mr D reported to the Council is historic or ongoing. Some of the documents suggest it is not ongoing. If that is the case, Mr D has received correct advice from the Council: that the police are the first point of contact to consider the allegations. I asked Mr D to tell me if the abuse was ongoing and he has not answered that question.
23. Other documents, including some of the information on the complaint form to us, suggest Mr D perceives the risk of abuse to be current. The distinction between historic abuse allegations and current abuse, or risk thereof is an important one. This is because a council’s duties in section 42 of the Care Act 2014 apply to adults with care and support needs who are at current risk of abuse. Section 42 does not apply where there is no current risk. Mr D told us and the Council he had autism: so he may have care and support needs, which have yet to be identified or assessed by the Council. He also reports being homeless. I deal with those points in the following sections.
24. It is perfectly conceivable that Mr D may have moved to Westminster to escape abuse. People may cross a local authority boundary to escape abuse but this does not necessarily mean they do not remain at risk of it, having moved. The Council is correct that the local authority where the abuse occurred/is occurring is responsible for carry out any safeguarding enquiries. But, there is no evidence the Council satisfied itself that there was no ongoing risk to Mr D in Westminster before saying he should contact the police or the authority where the abuse was taking place. So the Council did not act in line with section 42 of the Care Act 2014 and this was fault. I have taken into consideration that Mr D was reluctant to engage with council officers. But I consider officers should have made it clear that Mr D needed to give specific details about the abuse and whether it was ongoing or historic.

Care and support

25. The Council is required to carry out a social care assessment and decide whether they have any eligible needs if the person appears to need care and support. Mr D’s GP referred him to social services in May 2019, saying he was homeless and had autism and had suffered abuse. The Council referred Mr D on to the joint homelessness team. It did not carry out a social care assessment because Mr D did not meet the criteria for their service as he did not have a mental illness.
26. The Council should have offered to carry out a social care assessment once it became aware the joint homelessness team was not going to assist Mr D. The complaints manager was wrong to say Mr D’s GP needed to refer him for a social care assessment. There is no requirement in the Care Act for there to be a referral in order for a social care assessment to take place. And in any event, the GP had already referred Mr D to social care in May 2019. The failure to offer to carry out a social care assessment was fault. Mr D had been asking the Council for care and support, as well as for assistance with safeguarding and housing issues. The Council did not act in line with section 9 of the Care Act.

Housing

27. Mr D was asking the Council for help with housing, saying he was currently homeless. The joint homelessness team did not accept Mr D as a client because he did not have a mental illness. There is no fault in this, but the Council should have started a homeless application and made inquiries because there was reason to believe Mr D was homeless as he had said he was. And, the Council should have considered whether to provide Mr D with interim accommodation. The failure to do so was not in line with sections 194 and 188 of the Housing Act 1996 or the Homelessness Code of Guidance and was fault. It was not enough for the Council to have referred Mr D to other organisations helping homeless people. It had to act in line with Housing Act duties.
28. The complaints manager should have told Mr D that he needed to ask the housing options service for a homelessness assessment and interim accommodation if he had none. Signposting complainants to the correct council service was a reasonable part of her role and the failure to give basic information and advice on which part of the Council Mr D needed to approach for help was fault. And she should have asked Mr D whether he needed any assistance to access housing options service, given he said he had autism which can make communication challenging for some.

Disability discrimination

29. Mr D says he has autism. The Council took no steps to identify whether it needed to make any adjustments to its service to Mr D. For example, whether he needed support to deal with the police, or support with contacting the other authority the Council said he should contact to report the abuse. The failure to ask Mr D about these issues and consider whether any adjustments were needed when signposting him to other agencies was not in line with section 20 of the Equality Act 2010 and was fault.

Did the fault cause injustice?

30. The fault described above caused Mr D avoidable anxiety and stress at a time when he is recovering from surgery and already vulnerable.

Recommended action

31. To remedy the injustice, the Council should, as soon as possible and in any event within one month of my final decision:
• take a homeless application
• consider whether it needs to provide interim accommodation,
• carry out a social care assessment
• establish whether there is any current risk of abuse to Mr D in Westminster and if so, consider whether it needs to start enquiries under section 42 of the Care Act
• Agree with Mr D whether he wishes to be referred to another area’s safeguarding adults team if appropriate or if he needs any support to go to the police if there is no ongoing risk.
32. The Council should also apologise to Mr D and pay him £250 to reflect the avoidable distress.
33. I note the Council’s comments about Mr D’s lack of engagement and I accept those points. In order for the Council to carry out the actions at paragraph 31, Mr D will need to co-operate with the Council. He will need to attend for appointments with the housing department and the social care team and he will need to sign consent forms. Mr D will also need to give the Council the information it needs to assess his needs and deal with his housing application and this will include an address history and a contact telephone number, if he has one. If Mr D refuses to attend appointments or provide the information the Council reasonably requires, then the Council will not be able to proceed. The Council will not be able to provide Mr D with temporary accommodation unless he attends the housing options office.

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Final decision

34. The Council failed to act in line with sections 194 and188 of the Housing Act 1996 and with sections 9 and 42 of the Care Act 2014 when dealing with Mr D. The Council also failed to consider the need to make reasonable adjustments to its services when dealing with Mr D’s case. This was fault and caused avoidable anxiety. To remedy the injustice, the Council will: take a homeless application, consider whether it needs to provide interim accommodation, carry out a social care assessment and establish whether there is any current risk of abuse to Mr D in Westminster before agreeing with him whether he wishes to be referred to another area’s safeguarding adults team or to the police.
35. I have completed my investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman