Summary: Miss X complained about the way the Council handled her request to transfer to alternative housing because she is in fear of violence from her former partner. The Council is at fault for delays in decision-making and in identifying suitable alternative accommodation for Miss X. It should apologise, pay her £1,300 and make changes to its processes to avoid a repetition of these faults.

The complaint

1. Miss X complained the Council has delayed in dealing with her request to transfer to alternative accommodation from February 2009 when she first told it she was in fear of violence from her former partner. She is still living in the same property and her former partner knows where she is living with her two children.

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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 spoke to Miss X and considered the information she provided.
5. I considered the Council’s replies to my enquiries and its complaints responses.
6. I considered the law and guidance as set out below.
7. I considered our guidance on remedies.
8. I wrote to Miss X and the Council with my draft decision and considered their comments before making a final decision.

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What I found

Background

Homelessness

9. When a person applies to a council for accommodation and it has reason to believe they may be homeless or threatened with homelessness, a number of duties arise, including:
• to make enquiries;
• to secure suitable accommodation for certain applicants pending the outcome of the enquiries;
• to notify the applicant of the decision in writing and the right to request a review of the decision.
10. A person may be regarded as homeless if they are living in accommodation that is not suitable for them to continue to occupy.
11. If a council is satisfied someone is eligible, homeless, in priority need and unintentionally homeless it will owe them the main homelessness duty. Examples of priority need include people with dependent children.
12. Generally, the Council carries out the duty by arranging temporary accommodation until it makes a suitable offer of social housing or private rented accommodation. (Housing Act 1996, section 193)
13. The Homelessness Code of Guidance, which came into effect in April 2018, says authorities should not necessarily require evidence or a known history of violence, and where there is a probability of violence they should not expect a person to return to their accommodation. (Homelessness Code of Guidance at paragraph 8.19)
14. Government guidance on domestic abuse and homelessness (November 2014) says where there would be a probability of violence if the applicant remained in their present accommodation, the council must treat the applicant as homeless and should not expect them to remain there. In all cases involving violence the safety of the applicant and their household should be the primary consideration. (Department for Communities and Local Government supplementary guidance on domestic abuse and homelessness, November 2014, paragraph 51)

Housing allocation

15. Every local housing authority must publish an allocations scheme that sets out how it prioritises applicants, and its procedures for allocating housing.  All allocations must be made in strict accordance with the published scheme.  (Housing Act 1996, section 166A(1) & (14))
16. An allocations scheme must give reasonable preference to applicants in the following categories:
• homeless people;
• people in insanitary, overcrowded or unsatisfactory housing;
• people who need to move on medial or welfare grounds;
• people who need to move to avoid hardship to themselves or others.

(Housing Act 1996, section 166A(3))

17. This Council’s allocations scheme, last amended in November 2014, has four bands. The criteria for each band is set out at paragraph 11.4 of the allocations policy. Bands A and B are for the most urgent cases. Band C is for those who are owed a homeless duty by the Council. Band D is for those who are not in priority need – such applicants are not able to bid for properties.
18. This Council’s placement policy sets out how it priorities those who need to move within temporary accommodation. It sets out those categories of applicant that are given priority for accommodation in Brent. This does not include victims of domestic violence or those at risk of violence.
19. This Council’s policy for procurement of temporary housing includes a Housing Association Leasing Scheme (HALS). This scheme allows landlords to lease properties through housing associations and is intended to encourage private landlords to make properties available for temporary accommodation.

What happened

Transfer request

20. Miss X first approached the Council for help in 2009 after a domestic violence incident involving her partner, which she reported to the police. Council records show she completed a Fear of Violence (FOV) form. She says the officer who assisted her called over other officers, who chuckled over her statement. The Council has no record of this. The housing association also contacted the Council in 2009 to suggest a transfer.
21. It is not clear from the records what action was taken. An officer spoke to Miss X in late March 2009 to say a decision had not yet been made about whether she could transfer and advising she could approach another borough if she wished.
22. The records show it spoke to an adviser at the Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB) in early April 2009 and advised them Miss X could contact a particular officer if she wanted to look at private renting in another borough or could attend its offices to ask for emergency accommodation whilst it considered her fear of violence concerns. The Council says Miss X did not contact it about emergency accommodation or renting outside the borough. The Council is not able to confirm what happened after April 2009 because it has no further records for that period.
23. The housing association contacted the Council in early August 2011 to suggest Miss X was transferred to alternative accommodation because she was having problems with a neighbour and her former partner was due to be released from prison. Miss X wanted to be moved as soon as possible. The Council wrote to her asking her to complete forms and advising her to attend its offices to discuss emergency accommodation. It says Miss X did not attend its offices and it wrote to her to remind her about the FOV forms in October 2011. Miss X says she completed the forms in the Council’s offices in late October 2011 but when she contacted the Council in December 2011 it said it had not received them. She told the Council she was still in fear of violence.
24. Miss X completed fresh FOV forms in February 2012 at the Council offices. An officer contacted the police and the police sent a report in March 2012. The officer referred the case to the Council’s Social Assessment panel to consider whether Miss X could be transferred and which areas should be excluded. The panel could not make a decision because it did not have enough information about the areas to be excluded.
25. Officer A took over the case in May 2012 and left a message for Miss X to contact her. Miss X met officer A in July 2012 to discuss the risks of violence and the areas to be excluded. Officer A took the case back to the Council’s panel in late July. The panel asked for further information about the areas to be excluded, which Officer A provided in early August 2012. The panel decided Miss X should be transferred to alternative accommodation, excluding area 1 and area 2. Although a formal transfer request was completed in mid August, it is not clear what action the Council took to find alternative accommodation for Miss X at this point.
26. Miss X called the Council in mid October 2012 but there is no record of the conversation in the Council records. In November 2012 Miss X provided a new mobile number. Miss X has provided evidence she called the Council in January 2013 but the Council has no record of this. Council records show Miss X asked for further areas to be excluded in February 2013. It asked her to complete a fresh FOV form but it says it did not receive this. The records show Miss X contacted it in March 2013. Officer A told her the transfer had been delayed because Miss X had asked for further areas to be excluded. It appears the Council did not have an updated FOV form on file. It is not clear whether Miss X completed a further form at that time.
27. Miss X has provided telephone records showing she contacted the Council three times in April 2013, and twice in September 2013 but the Council has no record of these calls. She also called in June 2014 and again there is no record of this.
28. Miss X’s former partner was in prison in 2014 so the transfer was no longer a priority for her. There is no record she contacted the Council about it in 2015. There is a record of a conversation in March 2016 indicating she was looking at renting privately. Miss X has provided evidence she called the Council in late July 2016 but the Council has no record of this. There is no record of any contact with the Council in 2017.
29. Miss X says her former partner was not in prison by 2017. She says after his release he would keep turning up at her home. She says there was no actual violence but she was fearful of him because of the previous history of violence. She completed a further FOV form and provided supporting documents to the Council in May 2018. The Council accepts it did not initially contact the police about this. It did refer the case back to its panel in October 2018 and the panel decided she should be transferred and that areas 1, 2 and 3 should be excluded.
30. In its complaint response in October 2018 the Council accepted there had been further delays in dealing with the transfer request since May 2018. An internal record in November 2018 shows the relevant Council team could not identify any suitable temporary accommodation at that time and advised it would be difficult to find any because Miss X was not working and because of the area restrictions. In its response to my enquiries, it said it had asked Miss X to complete to complete a suitability assessment form to enable it to progress the transfer. It said it would not make a referral to another borough unless an applicant would not be safe living in any part of its borough.

Housing register application

31. Miss X has been on the housing register since 2005 and is in band C. Band C is for applicants who are accepted as being homeless.
32. The allocation of social housing is “choice-led”, which means applicants are expected to bid for properties they are interested in. Miss X can bid for a three bedroom property. When applicants bid for properties the bids are ranked according to which band they are in and their priority date (the date their application was accepted).
33. When it responded to her complaint at stage 1 in June 2018 the Council said she had only made two bids for a three bedroom property. She did not have sufficient priority to succeed with either of those bids. The Council advised her to bid for lots of properties in the areas she wanted. In June 2018 the Council had 1,034 homeless applicants requiring a three bedroom property and Miss X was in position 277 on its list.
34. In its response to my enquires, the Council said the average waiting time for a three bedroom property in its area is 15 years.

Complaints handling

35. Miss X made a formal complaint in May 2018. At stage 1 of the complaints process the Council acknowledged it should have moved Miss X into temporary accommodation earlier “considering the fear of violence concerns that [she] raised many years ago”. It apologised for not moving her. It said enquiries had not been followed through but also argued that Miss X had not always provided the information it needed. It offered her £500 compensation.
36. Miss X was not satisfied with this response. She gave the Council evidence of telephone calls she made to it providing the information it requested.
37. At stage 2 of the complaints process the Council accepted there were “shortcomings in the handling of [her] concerns”. It said although the passage of time meant it could not “be certain on every point, there have clearly been oversights in terms of making case notes of all your telephone contacts, and there have been delays in progressing your case”. It also accepted there was a further delay in dealing with the FOV form and supporting documents Miss X sent it in May 2018. It increased its offer of compensation to £1,000.
38. In response to my enquiries the Council said it had not paid the £1,000 because although it requested bank account details on three occasions, Miss X did not provide the information.

My findings

39. I will deal first with the housing register application. The Council accepted an application in 2005. It placed her in band C, which is the correct band for an applicant it considers is homeless. It said she could bid for properties with three bedrooms. It says Miss X has only bid for two properties and she did not have sufficient priority to succeed with those bids. It has advised her she needs to bid for properties in all the areas she would consider living in. It has told us that on average applicants in its area wait about fifteen years before securing social housing with three bedrooms. There is no evidence of fault in the way the Council has handled the housing register application.
40. It is not clear why Miss X has not placed bids but this may be because she was waiting for the Council to find her alternative temporary accommodation following her request for a transfer. I will now deal with that request.
41. This complaint goes back to 2009. The law and guidance on how Councils should consider a request for transfer due to domestic violence has changed since then. It is difficult to establish what happened so long ago because records only provide limited information and officers cannot be expected to accurately recall what happened.
42. Therefore, I cannot make any finding about the complaint that officers “chuckled” when they read Miss X’s statement when she first asked the Council for help.
43. The records show the Council did start considering Miss X’s request for a transfer in 2009. There is no record the case was considered by its panel at that stage nor that it told Miss X whether it had agreed she could transfer. Council records show it spoke to the CAB in April 2009 to advise that Miss X should either contact a named officer about renting privately in another borough or should contact it directly about emergency accommodation. Miss X disputes this conversation happened. It appears the Council took no further action after that but the reasons for this are unclear. I cannot criticise the Council for not being able to produce detailed records for events more than ten years ago. There is insufficient information for me to decide whether the Council was at fault for not pursuing the transfer at this stage.
44. The records show Miss X contacted the Council again in August 2011 and completed further FOV forms in October 2011. This was initially progressed but in the period January to February 2012 the Council did not have a mobile contact number for Miss X. The Council did take some action between March and May by which time the case had been considered by its panel but no decision was made because there was insufficient information. Miss X provided further information in July and in early August 2012 the Council decided she should transfer and two areas should be excluded. It appears no further action was taken after deciding this. The reasons for this are unclear.
45. In its complaint response the Council said Miss X did not always provide all the information it needed. However, as part of the Council’s complaints process, Miss X provided to the Council her telephone records that show she was in touch with officers regularly. Council records show she contacted it in February 2013 to discuss other areas she wanted excluding. It appears she understood the Council was progressing the transfer at that point.
46. On balance, I consider the Council took too long to make a decision that Miss X should move to alternative accommodation. It has argued that Miss X was not responding and providing the information it needed. Miss X has provided records that show she was contacting the Council around once a month. Many of these calls are not shown in the Council records, which appear to be incomplete. Therefore, I cannot assess whether Miss X had provided the information the Council needed.
47. I also consider the Council was at fault for not taking action after deciding Miss X should move in August 2012. If there were good reasons for not taking action it should have clearly recorded them and it has not done so. It should also have written to Miss X explaining its reasons for not taking further action and there is no evidence it did so. Miss X continued to contact it for updates in 2013 on the understanding the Council was going to assist her.
48. It is not clear that Miss X suffered a significant injustice as a result of the Council’s failure to act. Although she was in fear of violence, I am not aware of any specific threats and I understand she did not suffer actual violence in this period. Miss X did not contact the Council to ask for emergency accommodation. That said, the lack of action in 2012 and 2013 caused her some uncertainty about whether and how the Council would assist her and meant she had to keep calling for updates.
49. I have seen no record that Miss X contacted the Council in 2014 or 2015 and between July 2016 and May 2018 except to report issues about repairs to her current property in July 2017 and about rent in November 2017. I am aware that her former partner was in prison for some of this time and therefore moving was less of a priority.
50. Miss X contacted the Council again in May 2018. She completed a further FOV form and provided the supporting documents the Council requested. The Council accepts there was a delay in considering this. This delay is fault. By May 2018 Miss X was reporting her former partner had visited the property and both she and her children were in fear of violence from him. The Council’s failure to consider this and act without delay caused her avoidable distress.
51. The Council did decide in October 2018 that she should be transferred to alternative temporary accommodation. It says it cannot progress this until she completes a suitability assessment form. It says there is limited accommodation available in the areas Miss X wants to live and the accommodation that is available is not affordable for her because of the benefit cap.
52. Miss X complains the Council keeps asking her to complete more forms but then takes no action. I agree. My review of the records shows she has repeatedly completed forms and there is no evidence the Council has taken steps to identify alternative accommodation for her until November 2018, which was after she complained.
53. There is also no evidence the Council has actively considered options other than social housing, such as private renting either in its area or elsewhere. It should now do so.

Complaints handling

54. I have not found fault with the way the Council responded to the complaint. In its stage 1 response it set out what had happened based on its records. Miss X sent it evidence of telephone calls she had made that were not in its records. At stage 2 the Council accepted there were failings in the way the case was handled and offered her £1,000 compensation. It did not pay this because it did not have bank details for Miss X. I consider this was an appropriate offer in the circumstances.

Agreed action

55. The Council will, within one month of the date of the final decision:
• Apologise to Miss X for its delays in reaching decisions about whether Miss X should move and delays in identifying suitable alternative temporary accommodation for her.
• Pay her £1,000 for the uncertainty about what action was being taken, the avoidable distress caused by living in fear of violence for prolonged periods of time, and a further £300 for the time and trouble caused to Miss X who had to keep contacting the Council for updates and pursue a complaint. This makes £1,300 in total and is in line with our guidance on remedies.
56. The Council will, within three months of the date of the final decision, consider all reasonable options for re-housing Miss X in the areas that are safe and affordable for her to live. It will report to Miss X and to us on the steps it has taken.
57. The Council will, within three months of the date of the final decision:
• review its processes to ensure that when it receives a request for a transfer due to domestic violence it makes enquiries and a decision without delay, and that it clearly communicates its decision (preferably in writing) to the applicant;
• review its processes to ensure that when it decides an applicant should transfer to alternative temporary accommodation, action is taken to identify that alternative accommodation without delay and the applicant is kept informed of what is happening; and
• remind relevant staff of the information that is needed for its panel to make decisions about whether an applicant should transfer because of fear of violence and the areas to be excluded to avoid delays cause by the panel not having sufficient information to make a decision.

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Final decision

58. I have completed my investigation. I have found fault leading to personal injustice. I have recommended action to remedy that injustice and prevent reoccurrence of this fault.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman