Summary: the complainant says the Council did not comply with the recommendations of its Complaints Panel or provide advice, support, or accommodation it owed him as a vulnerable person leaving care. The Council says it carried out the work agreed and provided a personal assistant. The Ombudsman finds the Council acted without fault in providing for Mr X’s needs as a care leaver. However, the Ombudsman finds the Council at fault for taking too long to decide it owed a housing duty.

The complaint

1. The complainant whom I shall refer to as Mr X, complains the Council failed to comply with an adjudication decision issued by its complaints panel in 2014. Further Mr X complains the Council has not met its statutory duty to offer him advice, assistance, and accommodation as a care leaver in 2017 or since.
2. Mr X says a Council officer forged his signature on housing application forms, but the Council has not upheld his complaint. Mr X says the form with the signature enabled the Council’s housing allocations team to gain confidential information about him from its social care teams.
3. Mr X says the Council’s lack of advice, support or accommodation put him in a vulnerable position. Mr X wants the Council to help with accommodation and to compensate him for the breach of data protection.

Back to top

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. 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)
6. If 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)
7. We normally expect someone to refer a complaint to the Information Commissioner if they have a complaint about data protection. However, we may decide to investigate if we think there are good reasons. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)

Back to top

How I considered this complaint

8. In considering this complaint I have:
• Contacted Mr X and read the information presented with his complaint;
• Put enquiries to the Council and reviewed its responses,
• Researched the relevant law, guidance, and policy;
• Shared with Mr X and the Council my draft decision so they had an opportunity to comment. I have considered any comments received before making this final decision.

Back to top

What I found

What happened

Settlement of Complaint

9. Mr X aged 17 sought help from the Council in January 2012 because he had nowhere to live and was sleeping on friends’ sofas. The Council began an assessment of his needs in May 2012. The delay in starting the assessment meant a delay to Mr X receiving ‘leaving care’ support. The Council did not offer Mr X temporary accommodation under Section 20 of the Children Act 1989.
10. Mr X complained to the Council. In July 2013, the Council upheld Mr X’s complaint at stage 1. Not satisfied with the Council’s response Mr X asked the Council to consider his complaint at Stage 2 of its complaints’ procedure. Dissatisfied with the Stage 2 response Mr X asked the Council to consider his complaint at its Complaints Panel. The Panel considered the complaint in May 2014 and in June 2014 upheld two of the complaints considered.
11. The Panel decided that in addition to the financial award the Council should appoint a personal advisor to advise, befriend and support Mr X helping him set up and maintain a housing tenancy. The Council would pay a deposit, one month’s rent in advance and letting fees. If Mr X did not want to accept this offer of support which mirrored the support Mr X would have been offered under Section 20 of the Children Act. So, the Council said he could opt instead to receive a payment of £1650.
12. On 4 June 2014 Mr X accepted through his legal representative the Council’s offer a payment of £1650 instead of housing assistance from the Council. The Council paid Mr X.
13. The Council offered temporary accommodation to Mr X in 2014 but following eviction from that accommodation he found it difficult to sustain a tenancy.

End of Care leaver duty to accommodate 2015

14. Mr X reached the age of 21 in 2015. This meant the Council says it no longer had a duty to accommodate Mr X. Similarly, the Council says unless Mr X decided to engage with education or training the Council’s duty to offer him advice and support also ended. The Council wrote to Mr X explaining that its duties would end and that if he decided to engage with education and training before reaching the age of 25, he should contact the Council.
15. The Council says between December 2015 and August 2018 Mr X lived in other council districts. The Council understood Mr X no longer wanted to live in the Council’s area because this exposed him to risks.

Housing and Care leaver duties from 2015.

16. In June 2016 another council which had provided temporary accommodation for Mr X in its area asked the Council to accept a housing duty for Mr X. It explained Mr X did not fulfil the ‘local connection’ criterion for the other council’s area. The Council accepted the referral. The Council wrote to Mr X in October 2016 asking him to discuss his housing needs but did not receive any response. The Council tried to contact Mr X using the telephone, email and addresses given but without success. It found it could not trace him.
17. In August 2018 Mr X’s solicitors referred Mr X, (now aged 24) to the Council for support in gaining access to education or training. The Council discovered another council had placed Mr X in temporary accommodation.
18. Council officers met with Mr X in October 2018 and discussed his current circumstances. The Council followed up the meeting with a visit to Mr X at his temporary accommodation in December 2018. The record shows the assessment identified Mr X would need support from adult social services to help Mr X deal with housing, finding work and managing his finances.
19. Mr X presented as homeless in January 2019. The Council decided he had become homeless intentionally without any mitigating circumstances and gave him three weeks to appeal against the decision. Mr X did not appeal.
20. Another council placed Mr X in temporary housing in February 2019.
21. The Council arranged a meeting at Mr X’s placement in an assessment centre in March 2019. The Council wanted to devise a plan for Mr X as he moved towards leaving the Leaving Care Service on reaching the age of 25 in June 2019. Mr X told officers he wanted to engage with an education or training course but could not settle to that because of his unsettled housing circumstances.
22. The assessment found that to decide on support for Mr X he needed to consent to the Council having access to his mental health assessment as part of its housing assessment. Council officers met with Mr X in June 2019 to discuss the Pathways assessment and referral form which Mr X did not wish to sign off. Mr X’s personal assistant, a Council social worker, met with him but Mr X refused to agree to sign off the referral.
23. The Council says although Mr X sought help it could not progress with support from adult care services or housing because Mr X would not agree to sharing mental health records. Mr X did not agree with the diagnosis given him by health professionals.
24. On closing Mr X’s case the Council says he has received visits and support from a personal adviser and interventions from other agencies. The Council says Mr X remains entitled to receive advice and guidance if he asks for it once he completes his current treatment. Another council says it owes Mr X a housing duty and will provide accommodation on completion of his treatment.

Analysis – is there fault causing injustice?

25. My role is to examine whether the Council properly adhered to its decision in 2014, met its statutory duty to offer Mr X advice and support as a care leaver until her reached the age of 25, and properly considered his housing or homeless applications. It is not part of my role to decide what the advice and support should have been. If I find fault I must decide if that caused an injustice, and if it did then I must decide what the Council should do to put that right.
26. Mr X alleges a Council officer forged his signature on documents. That is a serious allegation and is more properly for consideration by the prosecuting authorities. The Information Commissioner may consider complaints about data breaches and so I find this issue lies more properly in the remit of another agency.

Late complaints

27. Part of this complaint concerns events in 2014 and 2015. Usually we do not investigate complaints after this passage of time. However, I have exercised our discretion to consider the complaint because I am satisfied Mr X’s vulnerability makes it unlikely, he would have known earlier of his right to complain to the Ombudsman.

Compliance with Adjudication

28. Following the Council’s decision in June 2014 the Council paid Mr X the money he elected to have rather than the housing assistance, appointed a personal adviser, and secured for him temporary accommodation. I find the Council met the commitments set out in its adjudicator’s letter of 4 June 2014.

Duty to offer services to a care leaver

29. The Council’s duty to support and advise Mr X did not end in June 2014. Mr X remained a care leaver and so had a right to advice and support services until he reached the age of 21 in 2015. After that, his right to support and advice (but not to accommodation) continued until he reached the age of 25.
30. The Council’s Children’s Services closed Mr X’s case in June 2015 (when he reached the age of 21). However, the Council has shown it offered a personal assistant service to Mr X when sought. The Council says it continues to offer the personal assistant service using the officer with whom Mr X has built up trust.
31. I find the Council acted without fault when assessing Mr X’s need for services and in offering the personal assistant service which it continues to offer to Mr X.

Housing and homelessness

32. Once Mr X reached 21 years in 2015 the Council no longer owed him a duty to house him as a care leaver. Any housing duty it may owe him would be under the Housing Act 1996.
33. The time taken from the referral from another council in June 2016 to contacting Mr X in October 2016 is too long. We usually expect councils to complete enquiries into housing referrals or applications within 33 days. This took longer therefore I find the Council at fault for that delay. However, Mr X did not try to contact the Council or leave details of a forwarding address.
34. We will never know if but for the delay what Mr X’s response to the Council may have been or if that would have resulted in it accepting a housing duty for him.

Recommended and agreed action

35. To address the issue of the delay and not knowing what impact that may have had I recommend and the Council agrees to within four weeks of my final decision write to Mr X with an apology for that fault. In doing so it will confirm its intention to continue with the personal adviser support currently in place to offer some reassurance to Mr X on completing his current treatment.

Back to top

Final decision

36. In completing my investigation, I find the Council acted without fault in its support for Mr X but with fault in delaying its assessment of his housing application in 2016.

Back to top

Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman