Summary: Mrs X complained the Council provided incorrect advice about extending her home. This caused a delay in Mrs X applying to be placed on the housing needs register. There was fault causing injustice when the Council failed to give proper advice, and its service fell below expected standards.

The complaint

2. Mrs X complained the Council provided wrong and delayed advice about extending her home. As a result, there was a delay in Mrs X applying to be placed on the housing needs register.
3. Mrs X said her home is overcrowded and she would like the Council to backdate her allocations priority date.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

4. 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)
5. 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

6. As part of the investigation I have considered the following:
• The complaint and the documents provided by the complainant.
• Documents provided by the Council and its comments in response to my enquiries.
• The Council’s Housing Allocations Policy (amended January 2018)
• The Housing Act 1996
7. Mrs X and the Council both had an opportunity to comment on a draft of this decision.

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What I found

8. Every local housing authority must publish an allocations scheme that sets out how it prioritises applicants, and its procedures for allocating housing. Councils must follow their published scheme.
9. Councils have some discretion to decide which people deserve priority in their area. However, 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 medical or welfare grounds;
• people who need to move to avoid hardship to themselves or others.
10. As part of good practice, the Ombudsman expects to see clear allocations policies and clearly written decisions which explain the information considered and the reasons for the decision. We expect to see evidence an applicant’s medical priority has been considered and whether there are any exceptional circumstances. Councils should also tell applicants about their right to ask for a review of the decision.
11. The Council uses a banding system, from A to E, to prioritise the needs of applicants. Applicants in band A have the highest need and therefore the highest priority. Applicants in band E have lowest priority.
12. Applicants are also given a priority date according to the date they were placed into their banding.
13. The Council has a senior officer panel who can make exceptions where exceptional circumstances exist. It can also consider other special cases where an exception to the usual policy may need to be made.
14. There are two legal definitions of overcrowding - the room standard and the space standard.
15. The room standard looks at the number and gender of people sleeping in the same room. Two people of the opposite sex should not have to sleep in the same room. This rule does not apply to couples, children under the age of 10, or people of the same sex. Children under the age of 1 are not included. Living rooms and bedrooms are included in the calculation.
16. The space standard considers the number of people living in the property and its size.
17. If an occupier makes an application to the Council for accommodation, but the above standards are later breached because a child reaches the age of 1 or 10 but the household has not changed then there will be no offence.

What happened

18. Mrs X was previously homeless, living in temporary accommodation, and was in the Council’s priority band B.
19. Mrs X and her family moved into their current home, a three-bedroom house, in April 2015. The household included Mrs X, her husband, and their three daughters, then aged between 4 and 7 years old. Mrs X was pregnant with their fourth child, a boy, who was born in September 2015.
20. After moving into the property, Mrs X said the Council told her the home would be ideal to extend as her family grew.
21. Mrs X was in contact with her housing officer in June 2018. They discussed the possibility of Mrs X extending her home or applying to join the housing transfer register. Unfortunately, there is no record of this discussion.
22. Mrs X emailed the Council on 25 June 2018. She explained she was renting a Council property and was told when she moved in she could apply to extend. She asked for advice but, having seen the forms to fill in, noticed the Council does not allow extensions. She said housing officers still told her to fill in the forms.
23. A Council housing maintenance surveyor replied to Mrs X the same day. They confirmed the Council does not give permission for structural changes.
24. Mrs X replied and asked for more information, or about special circumstances, such as overcrowding. The Council’s housing maintenance surveyor said they did not know why the housing officer gave the wrong advice, but there are no exceptions to extending the property, unless Mrs X bought the house.
25. Mrs X completed an application to join the housing needs register on 25 September 2018 which she sent to the Council. She explained her three daughters shared a bedroom, with two sharing a bed. Mrs X also gave details of her stress related psychosis. She said her preference was to extend their property, but their housing adviser moved jobs without saying who is taking over. She said the children are getting bigger and need more space.
26. The Council considered Mrs X’s request and an allocations officer sent an email to Mrs X’s former housing officer on 1 October 2018. They asked for advice about the possible transfer and extension.
27. Mrs X’s former housing officer did not reply. They had left their role as neighbourhood officer in the September, so sent the query on to the neighbourhood inbox instead.
28. Mrs X asked the Council for permission to carry out a single storey rear extension on 4 December 2018. The Council responded on 5 December refusing the request. It said major or structural changes are not allowed.
29. The Council wrote to Mrs X on 24 January 2019, accepting her application to join the housing needs register. It gave Mrs X band B priority, with a priority date of 10 January 2019.
30. Mrs X complained to the Council on 30 May 2019. She said the lack of advice given by her housing adviser resulted in the Council placing her on the housing register a year and a half later than she could have been.
31. The Council responded on 13 June 2019. It said when Mrs X contacted the neighbourhood officer in June 2018, she asked the officer to contact her again in September to discuss her options as she did not wish to move or extend then. However, there is no record of this discussion, it is the officer’s recollection of what took place a year earlier.
32. The Council said it put Mrs X’s application to join the housing needs register on hold while she applied to extend the property. When it found out this was not possible, it agreed to backdate her priority date to 25 September 2018.
33. The allocations manager did not consider there were exceptional circumstances to backdate the application further.
34. Mrs X asked the Council to reconsider her complaint on 21 June 2019. She did not agree with the Council’s explanation of her conversations with the neighbourhood officer.
35. Mrs X said the advice she kept getting was to fill in an alterations form, only for the Council to refuse in June 2018 because it is not permissible to extend a council house. She said it then took until September 2018 for the neighbourhood officer to arranger to visit her. The officer cancelled the visit because they moved jobs. Mrs X therefore went online and made an application herself. She said staff should have told her to apply to the housing needs register much sooner.
36. The Council responded on 9 July 2019. It accepted the outgoing neighbourhood officer should have arranged a different officer to cover her appointment with Mrs X. It said it failed to provide the expected service.
37. The Council said neighbourhood officers would not know whether occupants can extend their homes. It said it intends to have the surveyor team brief the neighbourhood officers on adaptations, so they give clearer advice in future.
38. The Council said advice about applying to the housing needs register is online, so Mrs X could have registered before September 2018.
39. The Council ended by saying officers should not have advised Mrs X extending her home was possible. She also should not have had to chase for contact with a neighbourhood officer. The Council apologised for this.
40. Mrs X brought her complaint to the Ombudsman on 16 September 2019. She wanted her priority date backdated to the date her family became overcrowded, because wrong information from the Council stopped her from applying to the housing needs register sooner.
41. On 8 November 2019, Mrs X appealed her allocations priority date of 25 September 2018. She said this does not reflect the date she became overcrowded, when her daughter turned 10, on 4 December 2017. She said she did not apply sooner due to misleading and wrong advice given by neighbourhood officers.
42. The Council responded on 11 November 2019. It said Mrs X’s allocations priority date should be the date the Council received her housing needs transfer application in September 2018.

Response to my enquiries

43. The Council provided me with comments from Mrs X’s former neighbourhood housing officer. They recalled speaking to Mrs X, but said she was unsure whether to request a transfer or an extension. Mrs X preferred an extension. The officer said they gave Mrs X advice about how to request an extension and explained the process for transfers, though not in as much detail. It was agreed Mrs X would think about it and they would speak again in a few months. The officer confirmed they did not make a record of this conversation, as it was a general enquiry and they did not feel the need to record it.
44. Internal Council emails show the neighbourhood officer thought they should have told Mrs X to get onto the housing transfer list straight away, due to the waiting times.
45. The Council told me its policy considers a family with two children need three bedrooms. A family of four children living in a three-bedroom home is therefore overcrowded under Council policy, and the family is entitled to a low priority to move.
46. The Council placed Mrs X in Band B because her third bedroom has a sloping roof and is not suitable for two children to share. It also did not consider her dining room a suitable bedroom because it is a thoroughfare. It did not consider Mrs X to be statutorily overcrowded. It did not give her medical needs further consideration because this would not have increased her priority above Band B. The Council provided me with evidence of this consideration.

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Analysis

47. The Ombudsman is not an appeal body. We cannot make decisions to replace the Council’s. Our role is to review the Council’s decision-making process to ensure its decisions were made properly.
48. I have seen the Council’s decision letter to Mrs X. It confirmed what Mrs X priority band was, but it did not explain the decision or what factors it considered (such as Mrs X’s medical condition). That was fault.
49. The Council accepted it should not have told Mrs X she could apply to extend her home. It also accepted the service it provided fell below expected standards. We welcome the Council’s confirmation it will train staff about this to ensure they provide better advice in future.
50. In an attempt to put matters right, the Council has already agreed to backdate Mrs X’s application to 25 September 2018. I will not ask the Council to put Mrs X’s priority date back to December 2017. The Council does not consider Mrs X to be statutorily overcrowded and, on the evidence seen, I agree with its findings.
51. The Council assessed Mrs X as overcrowded under its own policy and, after carrying out a review, agreed to backdate Mrs X’s priority to when she put in her application. This is in line with the Council’s policy.
52. However, the Council does have discretion to backdate the application further if there are exceptional circumstances. It told Mrs X it did not consider any exceptional circumstances existed. Unfortunately, it is unclear how the Council decided this, or whether it considered the fact it accepted it gave Mrs X wrong advice and its service fell below expected standards.
53. If Mrs X had received a better service and better advice she would not have needed to apply to extend her property in June 2018. She would have known this was not possible. Instead she could have been helped to apply for a housing transfer.
54. As a general observation, I found some of the Council’s record keeping was poor and unhelpful in forming a chronology of what took place and understanding why some decisions were made. A housing officer confirmed they did not keep a record of conversations with Mrs X. This is not good practice. The officer said they discussed Mrs X’s housing options and gave advice. I would expect this to be documented.

Did the fault cause an injustice?

55. I do not consider there was any injustice caused by the Council’s failure to explain its decision about Mrs X’s priority banding. The evidence I have seen shows the decision was properly considered.
56. The Council accepted its service fell below expected standards. This caused Mrs X unnecessary distress, frustration, and time and trouble when she did not receive clear advice and made an unnecessary extension application.

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Agreed action

57. Within eight weeks of my final decision, to remedy the injustice caused, the Council agreed to backdate Mrs X’s priority banding to June 2018, when she applied to extend her home.
58. To improve its service, the Council has:
• Explained the importance of record keeping to its neighbourhood officers and this will be embedded regularly.
• Amended its decision letters to explain the reason for the priority band it awards.
• Given updated guidance to neighbourhood officers about requests for property alterations, so clearer information is provided to tenants.

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Final decision

59. I have completed my investigation. There was fault causing injustice when the Council failed to give proper advice about Mrs X’s housing options, and its service fell below expected standards.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman