Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint the Council discriminated against him as a male victim of domestic abuse. The complaint is late and there is no good reason to decide to investigate now. In any case, there is insufficient evidence of fault to justify our involvement.

The complaint

1. Mr X complained the Council discriminated against him as a male victim of domestic abuse. He said the Council supported the perpetrator of abuse, rather than him, and wrongly pushed him to get support as a perpetrator. He also complained he did not have the chance to speak to a male officer, as stated in the Council’s policy. He says it breached his human rights. He is also unhappy with the Council’s complaints handling.
2. Mr X said that, as a result of the Council’s actions he had lost his home, lost time with his children and its treatment has seriously affected his mental health.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
4. We cannot investigate late complaints unless we decide there are good reasons. Late complaints are when someone takes more than 12 months to complain to us about something a council has done. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26B and 34D, as amended)
5. We cannot investigate complaints about the provision or management of social housing by a council acting as a registered social housing provider. (Local Government Act 1974, paragraph 5A schedule 5, as amended)
6. We cannot investigate a complaint about the start of court action or what happened in court. (Local Government Act 1974, Schedule 5/5A, paragraph 1/3, as amended)
7. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’, which we call ‘fault’. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint, which we call ‘injustice’. We provide a free service but must use public money carefully. We do not start or continue an investigation if we decide there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating.

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

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How I considered this complaint

8. I considered information provided by Mr X.
9. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

What happened

10. Mr X contacted the Council in February 2023. At that point he had left his Council property with his children and was living with a relative. He said he had suffered domestic abuse, and the Council asked him to complete a DASH checklist, which is a tool to assess a victim’s risk of further abuse. In line with its process, the checklist was sent to the Council’s domestic abuse helpline (PIPPA), its homelessness team and its children’s social care team, which took the following action:
• PIPPA completed a further assessment and spoke to Mr X about his situation. Mr X explained the perpetrator had made a false accusation about him to the police, but the police had taken no further action. He also said he had started court action to decide where the children should live and contact arrangements. PIPPA advised Mr X to speak to the social workers involved and referred him to another organisation that could support him;
• the homelessness team carried out an assessment. When Mr X identified a private rented property in April 2023, it assisted him by confirming the property was suitable and arranging to pay the deposit;
• children’s social care initially said it would not get involved because it was a private matter between the parents, but later carried out assessments, as required by the court.
11. In addition, the Council allocated a male engagement worker (MEW), which is an offer employed to support men where its children’s services team have an open case about their children. MEWs are part of the Council’s independent domestic violence advocacy team (IDVA).
12. In its complaint response, the Council said:
• the policy of its local housing office, which is its tenancy management function, does say tenants will be offered the option of an appointment with an officer of the gender requested. It had no record Mr X asked for a male officer at any point, but also no record he was offered this. It would take action to ensure housing officers offered this and recorded they had done so;
• all its PIPPA helpline staff and MEWs are female and it did not have a policy of offering contact with an officer of a specific gender, nor did it consider it needed to employ a male officer, having considered its responsibilities under the Equality Act 2010.

My assessment

13. We usually expect people to complain to us within 12 months of the events complained about. Mr X complained to us in January and February 2025 about events between February and July 2023. There is no indication that Mr X could not have complained to us sooner, particularly after he was signposted to us by the Council in December 2023. There are no good reasons for deciding to investigate now.
14. In any case:

• we cannot investigate the actions of the local housing office since the Council was acting in its capacity as a manager of social housing when addressing the initial report and such actions are outside our remit;
• there is insufficient evidence of fault in the way the Council’s PIPPA helpline or homelessness teams acted to support Mr X, nor with the allocation of a MEW, to justify our involvement;
• the Council’s children’s social care team was primarily involved in relation to the private court action Mr X had started and we cannot investigate what happens in court, including reports and assessments prepared for court action. It was for the court to decide where the children should live, what the contact arrangements should be and what should happen to the joint council tenancy;
• it would be for the court to decide if there was discrimination or a breach of Mr X’s human rights and, although these are matters we can also consider, there is insufficient evidence of fault to justify us investigating further; and
• we would not usually investigate concerns about poor complaints handling unless we are also investigating the underlying matters and there is insufficient evidence of fault in the complaints handling to justify further investigation.

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Final decision

15. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because it is late and, in any case, there is insufficient evidence of fault in relation to the aspects we could investigate, to justify our involvement.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman