Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s housing actions in 2018 and 2019. Miss X could have complained sooner and there is thus no good reason to exercise discretion to investigate these late matters.

The complaint

1. Miss X said the Council wrote false reports and caused her and her mother to become homeless and move accommodation frequently. She said she could not complain at the time as she was a child.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
3. 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)

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How I considered this complaint

4. I considered information provided by the complainant.
5. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

6. The complaint concerns matters from 2018 and 2019 and is thus late. We may investigate late matters where there is a good reason to do so. That Miss X’s mother complained to us in 2018 about some of these matters would not prevent us considering a complaint by Miss X, who was a child at the time, although we would need a good reason to do so.
7. The relevant question is whether Miss X could have complained to us sooner. We would not expect a child to complain to us, or to do immediately on turning 18. However, where the person has not been a child on their own in care before turning 18, but has been with a parent, they have not lacked parental support or guidance in the same way as a child on their own at 18. That Miss X’s mother had made her own successful complaint to us about some of these matters would have made it more likely that she was aware of her right to complain when she was 18. I note that Miss X says her mental health has been poor. However, the period since these events and since Miss X became an adult is too long for it to be reasonable to assume that she was unable to approach us for almost four years.

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Final decision

8. We will not investigate Miss X’s complaint because these matters are late and there is no good reason to exercise discretion to investigate them now.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman