Summary: Mrs C complains on behalf of her son about how the Council dealt with his application for housing. The Ombudsman finds no fault by the Council in respect of this substantive issue. There was however fault in that the Council advised Mr D of a timescale for review but did not keep to it, leading to some uncertainty for which an apology has been agreed.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I shall call Mrs C, complains on behalf of her son Mr D about how the Council dealt with his application for housing.

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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 considered all the information provided by Mrs C about the complaint. I made written enquiries of the council and took account of the information and evidence it provided in response.
5. I provided Mrs C and the Council with a draft of this decision and considered all comments received in reply.

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What I found

Legal and administrative information

6. 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))
7. The Council’s housing allocations scheme sets out how the Council considers and prioritises applications for social housing in its area. The Council will only include people on the housing register if they are awarded reasonable preference (priority) under one of the categories described in the scheme and have a local connection.
8. Under the Council’s housing allocations scheme, applicants for housing are assessed and placed into bands. Band 1 is the greatest priority, awarded for example to households with an urgent need to move is required to improve quality of life; Band 2 is awarded where a move is necessary but not urgent; Band 3 for those where a move is desirable but not essential; Band 4 is for those with a reduced priority and who have a significantly reduced opportunity to secure accommodation.

Background

9. Mr D lives in a one-bedroom flat which he rents from a housing association. His 13-year-old daughter moved to live with him there in October 2018.

Mr C applies to join the housing register

10. On 13 November 2018 Mr D applied to the Council to join the housing register. However, he did not include details of his daughter on the application form. The Council therefore assessed his application on the basis that he was a single person living in a one-bedroom flat and concluded he was adequately housed and did not meet the criteria for inclusion on the housing register. The Council says a letter was sent advising him of this and of his right to request a review.
11. On 14 December 2018 Mr D made a further application, this time including his daughter on the form. The Council assessed this application on 9 January 2019. An officer spoke to Mr D on 9 January 2019, advising that he was deemed adequately housed as a single person and that if his daughter was to be added to the application more evidence would be required, to show he was now responsible for caring for her. In the meantime, the Council sent him a letter which simply said his needs did not meet the threshold for inclusion on the housing register: the letter made no reference to Mr D’s daughter. An internal Council email dated 17 January stated that Mr D had not been included on the housing register as he had not provided proof of custody of his daughter, having submitted only a letter relating to Child Benefit for her. It said that Mr D had been advised the Council needed to see a formal agreement that he now had full custody of the child.
12. Also on 17 January, Mr D attended an outreach housing surgery in a local community centre, hosted by a housing support officer from the Council. Mr D explained his daughter had come to live with him following a breakdown in the relationship between her and her mother. He confirmed he was now the sole carer for his daughter who was receiving support from child and adolescent mental health services. He explained that the stress of living in a very small one-bedroom property was having an adverse effect on both of them, and confirmed he suffers from a chronic back condition for which he receives relevant benefit payments. The officer advised Mr D to appeal against the decision he had been given in respect of his application, so that the matter could be properly investigated. Mr D agreed to provide supporting evidence from CAMHS and from children’s social care.
13. Within the Council, when the officer who had seen Mr D at the outreach centre reported the matter to the housing register team on the same day, it re-opened his application and arranged a home visit to confirm the situation and collect any supporting documents available. It wrote to him saying it was re-opening and reviewing his application and would place it in Band 4 while it did so. It said it had arranged for a housing visiting officer to visit to discuss housing need in detail, and that the review would be done within 21 days and the decision notified in writing.
14. On 23 January 2019, the Council received Mr D’s review request dated 19 January. The Council has provided supporting documents in the form of a letter signed by the child’s mother confirming the child had been living with Mr D since 13 October 2018; an undated letter of support from a Family Support and Parenting Practitioner in children’s social care at the Council; and a letter of support dated 21 January 2019 from a child and adolescent psychotherapist. It is not clear if the documents were all submitted with the review request or later, at the visit.
15. Also on 23 January the Council contacted Mr D to arrange a visit date, and this was scheduled for 29 January. On 25 January, the housing register review officer sent Mr D an email setting out what was happening with his review request: that he would be visited and that in the meantime he would be in Band 4 for re-housing.
16. The home visit took place as planned and on 6 February the visiting officer began preparing her report. On 12 February, the housing register team manager sent an email to children’s social care with a form for completion, essentially asking social services to authorise their recommendation for a move. But the officer to whom the email had been addressed had left the Council’s employ and so the form was re-sent on 6 March to another officer for completion. The completed form was returned on 7 March. It said the need for re-housing was high and that alternative accommodation was required within a reasonable period in order to facilitate an appropriate placement for the young person.
17. On 8 March the housing register manager increased Mr D’s banding priority, initially to Band 2 on social and welfare grounds, due to Mr D and his daughter sharing a one-bedroom property in difficult circumstances, then later on the same day increased this to Band 1 on medical grounds to take account of Mr D’s health problems and his need for ground floor accommodation. The increased banding was backdated to 14 December 2018, the date on which he had applied to join the register for re-housing for his daughter and himself. The Council informed him of this in writing on 8 March 2019.

Analysis

18. The evidence shows that Mr D’s application has been dealt with appropriately in accordance with the Council’s allocations procedure. Mr D did not include his daughter on his application until 14 December 2018, and it was assessed and a decision issued by the Council based on the information he had provided. He did have the right of review and he exercised that right, and when he provided more information the Council reviewed its decision and awarded him the highest priority banding backdated to the December date.
19. The Council has confirmed that applicants in Band 1 typically wait 12-24 months for a two-bedroom property, dependent on the areas and types of properties that bids are placed on. At the time of responding to my enquiries in mid-March 2020 the Council said that Mr D had placed bids on 18 properties but had withdrawn ten of those. He has not been shortlisted for any properties. Between 18 December 2019 and 26 February 2020 bidding was suspended due to a change in the Council’s housing IT system, but Mr D was not disadvantaged as all applicants were unable to bid during this time and so were in the same position.
20. There was however some fault in that on 17 January the Council’s letter indicated that the timeframe for review was 21 days, giving him an expectation that the matter would be determined promptly in accordance with that timescale. In fact, Mr D did not have notification of the outcome until 8 March, some seven weeks later. The Council had updated him on 25 January, and he saw the visiting officer on 29 January, but the time taken between then and 8 March without a further update was too long and was fault. Mr D did not know what was happening to his application in the meantime.
21. The Council suggests the review was undertaken within the 21 days because it visited him for this purpose on 29 January, albeit that it did not notify him of the outcome until 8 March. It is accepted that the letter does not say the decision on a review will be issued within 21 days. However, in giving this timescale the Council gave the recipient a reasonable expectation that the review outcome would be notified within the 21 days. If the timescale is not intended to cover the whole process to the issue of the decision on the review but only that part of the process up to the visit, there would be little point in having that timescale and advising the applicant of it, since it would appear to follow that once that part of the process is completed the Council has no timescale for progressing the matter to a conclusion (that is, a decision), which is the whole purpose of a review request. At the very least, if the 21 days was intended to cover only that part of the process up to the visit, this should have been made clear in the letter.
22. The Council also considers that Mr D was aware of what was happening with his review after the visit on 29 January, as he had provided an email address for a social worker who could provide confirmation of need for priority for a move. However, Mr D had unknowingly given the address of a social worker who was no longer employed, and so while the Council was trying unsuccessfully to contact that social worker by internal email Mr D did not know why there was delay and he was not updated by the Council about that. The matter was not progressed until Mr D or his representative contacted the Council again on 6 March.
23. Having considered the representations made by the Council in respect of these matters, for the reasons given my decision remains as set out in paragraph 20 above.

Agreed action

24. In recognition of the injustice caused to Mr D by the delay identified above, I recommended that within four weeks of the date of the decision on this complaint the Council issues him with a formal written apology.
25. The Council has agreed to my recommendation.

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Final decision

26. I have competed my investigation on the basis set out above.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman