Summary: Miss X complained the Council did not tell her it had stopped paying Housing Benefit to her landlord. She also complained the Council asked intrusive questions and delayed processing her claim after she provided it with information. Miss X also complained the Council delayed issuing her with a Personal Housing Plan. We found some fault by the Council and the Council has agreed to a service improvement to address the fault identified.

The complaint

1. Miss X complained the Council stopped making Housing Benefit payments to her landlord without telling her. She also complained the Council asked intrusive questions when she asked for Housing Benefit to be reinstated, and delayed processing her claim after she provided it with information.
2. Miss X also complained the Council delayed issuing her with a Personalised Housing Plan. She says the Council’s actions caused her distress and negatively impacted her mental health. She would like the Council to make service improvements to ensure it takes quicker action and provides appropriate support for service users.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. We investigate complaints of injustice caused by ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. I have used the word fault to refer to these. Service failure can happen when an organisation fails to provide a service as it should have done because of circumstances outside its control. We do not need to show any blame, intent, flawed policy or process, or bad faith by an organisation to say service failure (fault) has occurred. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1), as amended)
4. We consider whether there was fault in the way an organisation made its decision. If there was no fault in the decision making, we cannot question the outcome. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended)
5. The law says we cannot normally investigate a complaint when someone can appeal to a tribunal about the same matter. However, we may decide to investigate if we consider it would be unreasonable to expect the person to appeal. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(6)(a), as amended)
6. If we are satisfied with an organisation’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

7. I discussed the complaint with Miss X and considered the information she provided.
8. I made enquiries to the Council and considered the information it provided.
9. Miss X and the Council have had the opportunity to comment on a draft of this decision. I have considered their comments before making a final decision.

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What I found

Housing benefit

10. Housing Benefit helps qualifying people on low incomes pay their rent. It is administered and paid by the council. The Housing Benefit Regulations 2006 (the Regulations) set out the rules councils must follow for calculating and paying Housing Benefit.
11. If someone disagrees with a Housing Benefit decision, they can ask for a review or appeal to the tribunal. If they have a review, and are unhappy with the decision, they can then appeal to the tribunal. The law says people should appeal within one month of the date of the decision they think is wrong. Because of this opportunity for appeal, we would not normally investigate complaints about this type of decision.

Homelessness assessments and Personal Housing Plans

12. Councils must complete an assessment if they are satisfied an applicant is homeless or threatened with homelessness. Councils must notify the applicant of the assessment. Councils should work with applicants to identify practical and reasonable steps for the council and the applicant to take to help the applicant keep or secure suitable accommodation. These steps should be tailored to the household, and follow from the findings of the assessment, and must be provided to the applicant in writing as their personal housing plan (PHP). (Housing Act 1996, section 189A and Homelessness Code of Guidance paragraphs 11.6 and 11.18)
13. There are no specific timescales for assessment or producing a PHP, but the Homelessness Code of Guidance stresses the need to take reasonable and sometimes urgent steps to prevent homelessness.

What happened

14. This chronology includes key events in this case and does not cover everything that happened.
15. Miss X lived in privately rented accommodation and was in receipt of Housing Benefit. The Council paid Housing Benefit directly to Miss X’s landlord.
16. In April 2021, a technical issue with the Council’s Housing Benefit computer system caused the payments to Miss X’s landlord to stop. The Council says it did not identify the technical issue at this time.
17. In January 2022, Miss X’s landlord gave notice to Miss X to leave the property.
18. The Council wrote to Miss X on 1 June 2022 and told her it had accepted a duty to help her find somewhere else to live. The letter explained the steps it would take regarding this matter and recommended Miss X look for privately rented accommodation. The letter also explained Miss X had a right to request a review of the Council’s decision regarding the steps it would take, as set out in the PHP.
19. A report carried out for the Council in June 2022 identified that Housing Benefit was not in payment for Miss X. On 21 June 2022, the Council contacted Miss X to tell her that Housing Benefit payments had stopped in April 2021. The Council asked Miss X to provide some information so it could reassess her claim. The information requested included confirmation that Miss X was resident at the address for the period in question, and clarification as to why her landlord had not queried non-payment of Housing Benefit.
20. Miss X provided some information to the Council on the same day.
21. The Council requested additional information from Miss X in July 2022. Miss X provided some information to the Council, however, the Council requested clarification regarding the information provided and asked for further information in August 2022.

Miss X’s complaint

22. In September 2022, Miss X complained to the Council that it had only recently told her that her Housing Benefit had not been paid since April 2021. Miss X said she and her landlord had provided multiple pieces of information to the Council as requested, but the Council had not explained why her Housing Benefit had stopped. Miss X complained the Council was taking too long to review and process her claim.
23. The Council acknowledged Miss X’s complaint on the same day. Later that month, it asked Miss X to provide some further information regarding her Housing Benefit claim.
24. In October 2022, Miss X provided additional information to the Council, and made a further complaint. She maintained the Council had not paid Housing Benefit since April 2021 and said it had not responded to her initial complaint.
25. That same month, the Council completed a homelessness assessment with Miss X and produced a PHP.
26. In November 2022, the Council requested some additional information regarding Miss X’s Housing Benefit claim. Miss X provided the information requested.
27. Later that month, Miss X’s landlord evicted Miss X from their property. Miss X’s landlord told the Council they had not asked Miss X to leave because of the rent arrears, but because they wanted to sell the property.
28. On 17 November 2022, the Council provided its complaint response. It apologised for the delay in responding and clarified that it had identified Miss X’s Housing Benefit payments had stopped due to a computer error. The Council apologised for the error and said it had requested information from Miss X to establish her entitlement to Housing Benefit. It said it had asked Miss X to provide additional information due to some inconsistent and contradictory information provided to it.
29. Miss X escalated her complaint to stage two on 21 November 2022. She complained the Council had not paid her Housing Benefit since April 2021 and had asked very detailed and intrusive questions about her finances. Miss X said some of the Council’s questions contained inaccuracies about her finances, and that the questions were not reasonable given that Housing Benefit had stopped due to a computer error. Miss X told the Council she was still homeless.
30. On 14 December 2022, the Council sent Miss X a copy of her PHP.
31. The Council provided its stage two complaint response on 15 December 2022. It said Housing Benefit had stopped in April 2021 due to a computer error which changed the type of Miss X’s tenancy. The Council said it did not know how the error occurred. It said it had subsequently made several requests for information from Miss X to determine the legitimacy of the Housing Benefit claim, and that some of Miss X’s responses raised further concerns which needed to be investigated before deciding on her entitlement. The Council said it would provide a formal decision letter once it had made its decision, and that Miss X would have the right of review if she disagreed with the decision. The Council acknowledged it did not provide Miss X with her PHP when it carried out her homelessness assessment and apologised for this.
32. Miss X remained dissatisfied with the Council’s response and brought her complaint to us.
33. The Council subsequently decided Miss X was not entitled to receive Housing Benefit at her previous address. Miss X has engaged her right to request a review of this decision.

Analysis

34. Miss X complained the Council stopped making Housing Benefit payments to her landlord without telling her. The Council says it has investigated the technical issue which led to Miss X’s Housing Benefit being ended, and although it has identified what happened, it has not identified the root cause of the error. It says it has referred the issue to its software developer to ensure the necessary steps are taken so that the error does not happen again.
35. The Council has acknowledged it did not identify that Miss X’s Housing Benefit ended in April 2021 until it reviewed a report produced in June 2022. As stated at paragraph three, service failure can happen when an organisation fails to provide a service as it should have done because of circumstances outside its control. The computer error/technical issue in this case is service failure, and the Council is therefore at fault. The Council apologised to Miss X for this matter in its stage one complaint response. This is an appropriate remedy for this aspect of the complaint.
36. The Council is not at fault for delaying telling Miss X her Housing Benefit had stopped. This is because section 90 of the Regulations says councils “shall notify in writing any person affected by a decision made by the authority under the regulations, as soon as reasonably practicable”. The Council says it did not make a decision to stop Housing Benefit in April 2021; instead, benefit stopped as a result of the computer error. The Council notified Miss X in a timely manner after it identified the issue, and on this basis, the Council is not at fault regarding this aspect of the complaint.

Information requested by the Council

37. Miss X complained the Council asked intrusive questions when she asked for Housing Benefit to be reinstated, and delayed processing her claim after she provided it with information.
38. The Council says it requested information from Miss X and her landlord to determine Housing Benefit entitlement. It says the multiple requests for information were due to inconsistencies between the information provided by Miss X and the documentation provided. The Council says it requested the information to determine whether Miss X’s tenancy was legally enforceable, on a commercial basis, and not created to take advantage of the Housing Benefit scheme; it says this included detailed examination of three years’ worth of bank statements and the need to examine rent statements going back to the start of the tenancy.
39. The requests for information do not demonstrate fault by the Council. This is because the Regulations say that councils may request information “as may reasonably be required by the relevant authority in order to determine that person’s entitlement to, or continuing entitlement to, Housing Benefit”.
40. The Council has provided its reasons for requesting the information from Miss X and her landlord. The Ombudsman is not an appeal body; we do not take a second look at a decision to decide if it was wrong. Instead, we look at the processes an organisation followed to make its decision. If we consider it followed those processes correctly, we cannot question whether the decision was right or wrong, regardless of whether a complainant disagrees with the decision the organisation made. There is no evidence of fault in how the Council made its decision to request the information from Miss X, and on this basis, there is no fault regarding this aspect of the complaint.

Issuing the Personal Housing Plan

41. Miss X complained the Council delayed issuing her with a PHP. The Council acknowledged the delay in its stage two response and apologised to Miss X for this. The Council stated its housing department is under extreme pressure, but that this does not excuse it for failing to provide the PHP when it should have done. I agree with the Council’s findings regarding this matter and have found the delay in issuing the PHP to Miss X to be fault.
42. It is positive the Council identified the delay as part of its complaint investigation. However, whilst the Council’s apology to Miss X as part of its stage two response is an appropriate personal remedy, this does not fully address the fault identified.

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Agreed action

43. The Council has agreed to take the following action within one month of the final decision:
1. Remind staff to ensure they issue Personal Housing Plans in a timely manner once they have completed a homelessness assessment.
44. The Council should provide us with evidence it has complied with the above actions.

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Final decision

45. I have found fault by the Council and the Council has agreed to take the above action to resolve this complaint. I have therefore concluded my investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman