Summary: Mrs X complained about the Council’s decision that she did not meet the qualifying criteria to join its Housing Register and its subsequent decision to defer her application for 12 months because she had deliberately worsened her housing circumstances. There was fault by the Council which caused Mrs X some frustration and uncertainty. The Council has agreed to provide a suitable remedy.

The complaint

1. Mrs X complained about the way the Council considered her application to join the Common Housing Register and its decision that she did not qualify on social and welfare grounds. She made a further complaint about a subsequent decision to defer her application for 12 months on the grounds that she had deliberately worsened her housing circumstances by giving up a tenancy of private rented accommodation outside the Council’s area.
2. Mrs X has been staying temporarily with her brother in the Council’s area. She wants to remain in the area so she can provide care and support to her elderly mother. She has been given notice to leave her brother’s accommodation by the end of September 2021 and she may then be homeless.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. 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)
4. 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

5. I have spoken to Mrs X and considered the information she sent me.
6. I considered the Council’s response to my enquiries and the documents it sent me.
7. Mrs X and the Council had an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I considered any comments received before making a final decision.

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What I found

The relevant law

8. Every local housing authority must publish a housing 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. 
9. Every 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;

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

The Council’s housing allocations policy

Qualifying households

10. To qualify to join the Council’s Housing Register, the applicant (or a member of his or her household) must meet all the following conditions:

Local connection

• have been resident in West Berkshire for at least two consecutive years before they make the application or;
• has a parent, adult sibling or adult child who has lived in West Berkshire for five consecutive years or;
• has been employed in meaningful paid employment within the district, for 16 hours or more a week, for at least the last two consecutive years..

AND

Resources

• The applicant must have insufficient resources to secure accommodation, whether rented, part-owned or owned in the private sector. This normally means the household has a gross income of £60,000 or less or capital of £16,000 or less.

AND

Housing need

The applicant must be assessed as having a housing need which puts them in one of the reasonable preference categories.

Reasonable preference in the Council’s allocations scheme

11. The Council’s scheme says it gives reasonable preference to people who need to move on welfare grounds. It gives the following examples:
• to allow someone to give or receive care or support;
• to address child or adult protection concerns;
• to move on from supported housing where support is no longer required;
• to address urgent multiple issues that can only be resolved by a move.
12. At the time of these events, the Council’s policy was to award between 0 and 50 points if it accepted there was a welfare or social need for housing.

Deferred households

13. The Council’s policy said households who did not meet the qualifying criteria are classed as deferred households. This means they were accepted on the Common Housing Register, and appropriate points were awarded, but they are not considered for an offer of accommodation until, and unless, all qualifying applicants have been exhausted on any particular shortlist.
14. In December 2020 the Council approved a new housing allocations policy. One of the changes was to remove the provision for deferred households. The new policy says the Council had decided to close the Housing Register to applicants who do not meet the qualifying criteria. So applicants must now be in one of the reasonable preference categories to qualify.

Deferred applications

15. Under the allocations scheme in force at the time, the Council could defer an application for a period of 12 months if it considered the applicant had deliberately worsened their housing circumstances. At the end of the 12 months suspension period, the applicant could ask the Council to reassess their application based on their circumstances at that time and lift the deferment.

Reviews

16. An officer senior to the original decision-maker, who was not involved in the making the original decision, carries out the review and responds to the applicant. The Council’s allocations policy says it will make a review decision within 56 days. If there is a delay, it will advise the applicant of the reason and a revised timescale.

What happened

17. Mrs X is a single woman. She applied to join the Council’s Housing Register in late February 2020. At the time she was a tenant of a two bedroom private rented property outside the Council’s area. She was in full-time work.
18. She applied to join the Register because she wanted to move to West Berkshire to support her parents who lived there. On the form she explained her father was terminally ill and her mother had disabilities. She had been travelling between her home outside the county and her parents’ home to support them. Mrs X’s brother lived in services accommodation in West Berkshire.
19. Mrs X provided a letter from her mother’s GP in March 2020. The GP supported Mrs X’s request to join the Register so she could move closer to her mother to provide care & support. He did not give any detailed information about Mrs X’s care and support needs.
20. Sadly Mrs X’s father passed away in March 2020.
21. In early April 2020 the Housing Register team wrote to inform Mrs X that she did not meet the qualifying criteria because she had no “reasonable housing need”. The letter explained that although she did not qualify, she could still log on and bid for properties advertised on the choice-based lettings scheme. But she would have a lower priority than applicants with a qualifying status. Mrs X was treated as a “deferred household” under the Council’s allocations policy.

22. The letter explained Mrs X’s right to request a review within 21 days. In the accompanying email, the Housing Adviser said the GP’s letter did not give enough information to award preference on the grounds of her mother’s care and support needs. She said she would contact the surgery to ask for more information.

23. The GP provided another letter in May 2020. It gave more details of Mrs X’s mother’s medical conditions and prescribed medication. It said her conditions limited her mobility and caused her to be in pain. The GP said she needed support with mobility and self-care at home. She also had a history of depression and needed emotional support following the recent loss of her husband.

24. On 1 July a team leader in the Housing Register team wrote to Mrs X to confirm she had reviewed the decision about whether to award social needs points. She had decided not to award points because the Council did not have any evidence about the type of care Mrs X provided for her mother and how her mother coped when she was not there. She advised Mrs X to notify the Housing Register team if there was any change in her circumstances. She also informed Mrs X of her right to ask for a review of this decision.

25. On 10 July Mrs X requested a review. She also informed the Housing Register team of a future change in her circumstances. She said she planned to move in September 2020 to live temporarily with her brother at his services accommodation in the Council’s area. She said moving closer to her mother would allow her to provide regular help with household chores and general care.
26. Mrs X also sent a letter from her mother which explained her care and support needs. She said her medical conditions limited her ability to do certain household tasks and gardening. She was in a state of emotional and mental distress following the loss of her husband in March. She did not feel able to cope without practical and emotional support from her daughter.
27. Mrs X’s mother sent another letter in early August 2020. She explained that her daughter regularly provided foot care which she could not manage due to her arthritis. She also helped when she had muscle spasms or a flare-up of a medical condition. She said Mrs X carried out certain housework tasks, gardening and decorated and maintained the home. She said her daughter also helped manage bill payments and correspondence. She said it would help them both if Mrs X could get affordable accommodation in the area.
28. On 9 September Mrs X completed an online form to notify the Council of a change in her circumstances. In late August she had moved to live with her brother and his family in the Council’s area. She had her own bedroom and shared other facilities with the family. She said she had permission to stay with her brother for one month. She was due to start a new job locally.
29. In late December 2020 an officer in the Housing Register team wrote to Mrs X. She said the Council had recently reviewed her case to take account of this new information. It had decided to defer her application for 12 months on the grounds that she had deliberately worsened her housing circumstances. At the end of the 12 month period, the application would be reassessed and the deferment would be lifted. The letter did not say when the deferment took effect or explain the reasons for this decision. It said Mrs X could request a review within 21 days.
30. Mrs X requested a review. In late January 2021 a team leader in the Housing Register team replied. He said:
• Mrs X had given up private rented accommodation in another area on 28 August 2020 and moved to her brother’s home knowing it was a temporary arrangement;
• Mrs X had stated that her relationship with her former private landlord was strained but she had not been served with a formal notice to leave the property and she had surrendered the tenancy voluntarily;
• By doing that, she had moved from a secure private rented property where she was the tenant to insecure accommodation in a room in her brother’s home;
• Although he understood she did this so she could care for her mother, taking this step without first securing alternative private rented accommodation was considered as worsening her circumstances;
• Her application had been reviewed and deferred on 29 December 2020.
• There is no discretion in the Housing Allocations Policy to consider a reduced period so the deferment applied for 12 months.
31. Mrs X complained to us in early February 2021.
32. In late February 2021 the Council offered Mrs X a property. According to the Council’s records, an officer told Mrs X this was likely to be the only offer because she would be unlikely to qualify for the Register under the new housing allocations policy. Mrs X refused the property because it did not have a parking space.

My analysis

33. In April 2020 the Council decided Mrs X did not have a qualifying housing need based on the information on the application form and in the March 2020 letter from her mother’s GP. It therefore treated her as a deferred household.
34. On the evidence available at that time, I am not likely to find fault in the way the Council made that decision. The officer considered the GP’s letter which did not give any details about Mrs X’s mother’s care and support needs. In these circumstances, it was not fault to decide the criteria for awarding reasonable preference on social or welfare needs were not met.
35. In July 2020 the Council considered additional information in the GP’s May 2020 letter. This confirmed Mrs X’s mother needed some support with mobility and self-care at home. The team leader decided not to award social or welfare needs priority because there was no evidence about the care Mrs X provided and how her mother managed when she was not there. Mrs X challenged that decision by requesting a review on 10 July. She sent additional supporting evidence in August.
36. The Council’s policy says it must make a review decision within eight weeks so it should have done that by 4 September. That did not happen. The delay in making the review decision was fault.
37. If the review had been completed on time, we do not know what the decision would have been made. Mrs X had provided further detailed evidence by then about her mother’s specific care and support needs and the help she gave her. But even if the Council had decided there were sufficient grounds to award reasonable preference for social or welfare needs before 4 September, it would still have had to review her housing needs after she moved to live with her brother in late August. Her circumstances changed then and the Council had to decide if she was still in housing need while she was living in her brother’s accommodation.
38. Mrs X notified the Council of the move on 9 September. The Council did not review her case until late December 2020. We would expect a council to process a change of circumstances within four weeks. So the delay at this stage was fault.
39. The Council then used 29 December 2020 as the start date for the 12 month deferment of Mrs X’s application. But she had notified the Council of the change in her circumstances on 9 September and the Council took more than three months to process this information. That was fault and it had the effect of deferring Mrs X’s application for longer than it would have been if matters had been dealt with more promptly.
40. The former and current housing allocations policy does not say whether the 12 month deferment takes effect from the date the applicant notifies the Council of the change of circumstances or the date when the Council makes the decision to defer the application. However it is unfair to the applicant to apply the deferment from the date the decision was made in cases where there has been significant delay by the Council.
41. The December 2020 review decision focused on whether Mrs X had deliberately worsened her housing circumstances by surrendering her tenancy of private rented accommodation elsewhere. In my view the decision about whether this was a deliberate act was inextricably linked to the question of whether she needed to move in order to provide care and support to her mother. I do not consider this was fully addressed in the review decision letter. It did not evaluate or directly address the new evidence Mrs X submitted in July and August about her mother’s care and support needs. It simply confirmed the July 2020 decision that she was not a qualifying person.
42. The December 2020 review found Mrs X was no longer in housing need because by then she was adequately housed at her brother’s home. Although she was staying with her brother on a temporary basis, I do not find fault with that decision. Mrs X had her own room and she had not been given notice to leave.
43. I have assessed the impact these faults had on Mrs X. The delay in responding to her July 2020 review request and processing the change of circumstances she reported in September 2020 caused her some frustration and uncertainty about her situation. But I acknowledge that the Council made her an offer of accommodation in February 2021 while her application was deferred. This offer certainly went a long way towards providing a remedy for Mrs X. Although Mrs X refused this offer because it did not meet all her preferences, the property met her assessed housing needs and, if she had accepted it, it would have improved her situation.
44. This investigation has also identified the need for the Council to review and clarify the section in the housing allocations policy which deals with deferments and the letters sent to deferred applicants.

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Agreed action

45. Within one month of my final decision the Council will:
• Apologise to Mrs X for the faults identified in this statement;
• Reconsider the deferment date it applied to her Housing Register application to take account of its own delay in acting on the change of circumstances notification;

Within two months of my final decision the Council will:

• Review the wording in its current housing allocations policy to make it clear when a suspension takes effect in cases where the Council decides an applicant has deliberately worsened their housing circumstances;
• Ensure letters sent to notify applicants of a suspension include the start and end dates.

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Final decision

46. I have completed the investigation and found the Council was at fault and this caused some injustice to Mrs X. The Council’s offer of accommodation went a long way to remedying the injustice. The Council has agreed to take further steps to provide a personal remedy for Mrs X and to review its allocation policy and letters.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman