Summary: Mr B complains about how the Council dealt with his housing needs, taking account of his health, and how it dealt with his correspondence about that. The Ombudsman finds there was no fault by the Council.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I shall call Mr B, complains about how the Council dealt with his correspondence about his housing needs, in particular his medical needs in respect of housing, and how it dealt with his complaints about the matter. He considers that if the Council had taken appropriate action when he wrote to it in February 2018, he would have been suitably accommodated sooner.

Back to top

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)

Back to top

How I considered this complaint

4. I considered all the information provided by Mr B about his complaint. I made written enquiries of the Council and took account of all the information and evidence it provided in response. I sent Mr B and the Council a draft of this decision and gave them the opportunity to comment on it.

Back to top

What I found

5. Mr B was living in a privately rented property which was in disrepair. A senior environmental health officer (EHO) visited and assessed the disrepair, using the Housing Health and Safety Rating System (HHSRS). Category one hazards are the most serious and if such a hazard is identified the Council has a duty to decide on the most appropriate course of action. A category one hazard of excess cold was present in Mr B’s home due to defects in the roof and loft and a lack of fixed heating. However, Mr B’s landlord wanted his property back to sell it and so on 12 March 2018 served a notice on Mr B requiring him to move out by 13 May 2018. In the circumstances the EHO decided enforcement options against the landlord were limited, but he recommended the Council awarded Mr B Band B priority for rehousing because of the disrepair issues.

The Council’s housing allocations system

6. Applicants to the Council's housing register are banded according to their housing need. The Council hold no housing stock of its own. All social accommodation is managed by housing associations and is allocated through a choice-based lettings system which allows applicants to bid for available properties they are interested in.
7. The top two bands under the Council’s system are Band A for emergency housing need, and Band B for high housing need.
8. To qualify for Band A, an applicant’s need for housing must be assessed as exceptional and examples of the type of situations that would qualify are where an applicant has been assessed as having an urgent health need, or is living in a home assessed as being in a state of emergency disrepair, or they need to move to escape violence or threat of violence, harassment or a traumatic event.
9. Applicants qualifying for Band B include those accepted as statutorily homeless by a Devon local authority, and where it is assessed that it is not possible and appropriate to find them private rented accommodation; those who are homeless, or are threatened with homelessness, and have been placed in the ‘Homelessness Reduction Act - Qualifying Applicants' category by a Devon local authority; those who have been assessed as having a high health need; and those living in a home assessed as being in a state of high disrepair.

Mr B’s application for housing

10. In mid-March Mr B updated his housing application to indicate that he was experiencing disrepair issues with his current property. A housing options officer completed an assessment of Mr B’s housing needs and on 20 March wrote to him with a personal housing plan (PHP). The PHP stated Mr B had no mobility issues and had been assessed as requiring a general needs property. It stated that a referral had been made for additional support from a local support service. The PHP set out advice that Mr B should update his housing application and supply any medical evidence so the Council could ensure he was in the correct band for housing. It also advised he was entitled to make a homelessness application.

Mr B’s concerns about the PHP

11. The Council records show the housing officer and Mr B’s social worker were regularly communicating about Mr B’s social and housing issues. On 26 March the social worker advised housing that Mr B had said he would be writing to the housing options officer as he did not feel his situation had been understood, and the levels of pain he was living with meant he could not retain the information in his PHP. The records noted the social worker was going to seek an assessment by an occupational therapist (OT) to provide information about the type of housing best suited for Mr B’s needs.

Mr B’s letter dated 26 February 2018

12. Mr B did write to the housing options officer, in a letter dated 26 February. The date though appears to be an error: the content of the letter and the context provided by the records referred to above suggest it was written on 26 March. But it also seems that this is the letter Mr B complains he received no response to.
13. In his letter Mr B set out concerns that the housing officer had placed him in the general needs category which failed to take account of mobility issues caused by his chronic pain which meant that on occasion he would collapse. This meant that stairs were dangerous for him.
14. The Council’s records show that on 29 March the housing officer spoke to Mr B on the telephone. The notes say that they discussed his housing situation, that maybe stairs were not a good idea for him, and that his social worker was looking into arranging the OT assessment. The housing officer advised that once the OT had completed assessment, she would reassess Mr B’s housing needs category in light of that.
15. At the end of May 2018, the housing officer received the OT’s report. It confirmed Mr B needed accommodation with a maximum of three steps. Mr B’s housing application was then amended to reflect this.

Mr B’s homelessness and his bids for housing

16. Mr B was technically able to stay in his home until 13 May when the notice the landlord had served on him expired. He chose to move out on 20 April and then spent some time living in his van and camping. The Council took a homelessness application and made offers of emergency accommodation on 11, 14 and 30 May and 14 June. The Council’s records state Mr B declined these offers. He has two dogs which are very important to him and he did not want them placed in kennels. While these were decisions he was entitled to make, the Council did not have a duty to find him emergency accommodation which would allow his dogs to stay with him, and its actions here were not affected by fault.
17. On 15 June the Council was able to offer Mr B emergency accommodation in a caravan, which he accepted as he could keep his dogs with him.
18. In mid-July the Council issued its decision on Mr B’s homelessness application. It accepted he was unintentionally homeless and in priority need and it therefore owed him the full housing duty. In mid-August the Council matched Mr B’s needs with a bungalow: the property was offered to him, he accepted the tenancy and moved in.
19. Before Mr B was offered that property he had been bidding on available homes and the Council had also been placing bids on his behalf. Two properties offered to Mr B in May were first floor properties, but these officers were before the Council had the OT’s assessment stating that a maximum of three steps was needed. Some properties bid on were deemed unsuitable for other reasons, including the lack of available care in some locations to meet Mr B’s needs, or that he did not meet the landlord’s criteria. I have not seen evidence of fault by the Council in the way the bidding was dealt with.

Mr B’s complaint to the Council

20. At the end of May 2018 Mr B complained to the Council by telephone and letter. He said he had concerns about the safety of using stairs before leaving his old address and had written to the housing options officer about this, but his letter had been ignored. He enclosed a copy of the letter dated 26 February, which I have referenced at paragraph 12 above. He felt the Council should have told him at the outset what evidence he needed to supply to show he needed accommodation without stairs. He also said he had not declined emergency bed and breakfast accommodation offered on 30 May.
21. Replying the Council said that regarding medical evidence it had not been able to amend his application to reflect the need for step free accommodation until it had the information from the health professional (in this case, the OT). Mr B was dissatisfied because he considered his letter to had been ignored (referring here it seems to the letter but sent in March) and that the Council had not asked for medical evidence. The Council explained that Mr B’s health needs had been discussed with him on 29 March when it was noted that an OT assessment was being arranged by his social worker, and once that was done and the information from it was received by housing, his accommodation needs were amended on his application. The OT assessment did not lead to an increase in Mr B’s banding because Band B remained appropriate for his assessed needs, but it did alter the property type he was eligible to bid for.
22. The Council needed the report from the OT before it could make the amendment to his housing needs. There was some delay in the OT assessment, but responsibility for that did not rest with the Council.

Back to top

Final decision

23. The Council’s actions in this matter were not affected by fault. I have completed my investigation on the basis set out above.

Back to top

Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman