Summary: there was fault in the way the Council handled Miss X’s Housing Register application. But that fault did not cause Miss X any significant injustice because she did not qualify to join the Housing Register.

The complaint

1. Miss X complained about the way the Council assessed her application to join the Housing Register. In particular, she disagreed with the Council’s decision not to include her children as members of her household. This led the Council to decide she was not in housing need and therefore did not qualify to join the Housing Register.
2. Miss X says the Council’s handling of her Housing Register application caused her considerable stress and frustration at a time when she was expecting another child.

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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 Miss X and considered the Council’s replies to her complaint and the relevant housing records.
6. Miss 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 Council’s housing allocations scheme

7. The Council’s housing allocations scheme explains how it assesses the number of bedrooms a household needs to decide whether the current accommodation is overcrowded.
8. Two children under the age of 10 are expected to share a bedroom. A single person over the age of 21, or a couple, are entitled to a bedroom.
9. An applicant who is one bedroom short of their assessed needs is entitled to Band 3 priority under the Council’s allocations scheme. If they are two bedrooms short, they are entitled to Band 2 priority.
10. An applicant may request a review of a Council’s decision that they do not qualify to join the Housing Register. The Council’s housing allocations policy says a senior officer should make the review decision within eight weeks of receiving the request. This is also the recommended timescale in statutory guidance issued by central government.
11. The Council’s procedure manual provides guidance to officers who assess Housing Register applications. When it decides whether a child is a member of the applicant’s household, it says the parent or guardian who receives welfare benefits, including Child Benefit, for the child should normally be considered as the primary carer.

What happened

12. Miss X applied to join the Council’s Housing Register in early December 2020. She applied on the grounds that her current home was overcrowded.
13. At the time, Miss X and her two young children, who were both under ten years old, were living in a two bedroom privately rented flat. Miss X was expecting another child.
14. Miss X had an older child who lived at a different address with Miss X’s mother. Miss X declared this on the housing application form. She ticked a box to say her two young children lived with her but also entered her mother’s address.
15. On 24 March 2021 the Council informed Miss X she did not qualify to join the Housing Register. The decision letter said she was not overcrowded in her current accommodation. It referred to the Council’s bedroom standard and said she only qualified for one bedroom because none of her children were living with her. The letter explained Miss X could request a review within 21 days if she disagreed with the decision.
16. Miss X promptly requested a review. She said the Council had got the facts wrong. Her two young children were living with her. She also explained that her circumstances had changed since she made the housing application. Her eldest child had moved back to live with her on 25 March because Miss X’s mother was too ill to continue looking after her. She said her eldest child was sleeping on an inflatable mattress on the floor in the second bedroom and provided her birth certificate. She asked the Council to review its decision that she was not in housing need and did not qualify to join the Register.
17. On 25 May the Council sent Miss X the review decision. It said it had considered the evidence on Miss X’s housing application form, records for her Council Tax Support claim and her review request. It said it did not have sufficient evidence to show that Miss X’s eldest child had moved back to live with her permanently. It asked her to provide proof she was receiving Child Benefit, or another benefit, for her eldest child. The review decision letter did not say whether the Council now accepted that Miss X’s two younger children were living with her. It upheld the original decision that she was not in housing need.
18. The Council Tax Support records the Council sent me include Miss X’s two younger children as members of her household for benefit purposes.
19. Miss X then complained to us because she disagreed with the review decision. She told us she had claimed Child Benefit for her eldest child when she returned to live with her but it took a long time for the claim to be processed. She said when Child Benefit was finally awarded for her eldest child, she did not receive a benefit award letter and therefore she had no proof she could send to the Council.
20. Since making this complaint in June 2021, there has been another significant change in Miss X’s circumstances. She did not renew the tenancy of her private rented accommodation when it ended in August 2021. She moved to live with her mother who was seriously ill and needed care and support. Sadly, Miss X’s mother has since passed away. Miss X and her children have stayed in her mother’s Council house while they wait for the Council to decide whether to grant Miss X the tenancy.
21. Miss X told me she has not had time to update her Housing Register application to notify this change in her circumstances.

My analysis

22. When Miss X made the housing application in December 2020, she was living in a two bedroom flat with two children under the age of 10. Under the bedroom standard in the Council’s housing allocations policy, this means she was adequately housed. Her assessed need was for two bedrooms. Although she was pregnant then, an unborn child is not counted when assessing a family’s bedroom need.
23. The Council did not make a decision until late March 2021, almost four months after Miss X made the application. The delay was fault. The Ombudsman recently issued a public report which found the Council was taking too long to process Housing Register applications. In response to that report, the Council agreed to draw up an action plan to reduce the backlog of applications and the average time it takes to process applications to four to six weeks.
24. In Miss X’s case, this delay did not cause her any disadvantage because the Council decided she did not qualify to join the Housing Register.
25. The March 2021 decision letter said Miss X only needed one bedroom because her two younger children did not live with her. Miss X had ticked a box on the application form stating that her two younger children lived with her. But she had also inserted her mother’s address directly above their names. This seems to have caused the misunderstanding.
26. But even if the Council had known in March 2021 that Miss X’s two younger children were living with her, and included them in the assessment, the decision would have been the same. Miss X would still not have been overcrowded under the bedroom standard. As a parent of two children under the age of ten she was needed a two bedroom property. She was already in a two bedroom flat so she would not have been considered to be in housing need.
27. The situation changed when Miss X informed the Council that her eldest child came to live with her in late March 2021. She included this information in the review request and also made the point that her two younger children were already living with her.
28. The review decision was made within two months so there was no delay at this stage. However the review decision letter did not say whether the Council accepted that Miss X’s two younger children were living with her. This was an omission because Miss X had challenged the Council’s decision that she only needed one bedroom because none of her children lived with her. So the reviewing officer should have directly addressed this point in the review decision. But even if the Council had accepted at the review stage that Miss X’s two younger children lived with her, it would not have changed the decision for the reasons given in paragraph 26.
29. As Miss X’s eldest child previously lived with her grandmother, it was reasonable for the Council to ask Miss X for proof that she had been awarded Child Benefit, or another welfare benefit for her. That would show Miss X was now the primary carer and the arrangement was intended to be permanent. The Council’s procedure manual requires officers to seek this evidence. For this reason I do not consider it was fault for the Council to ask Miss X for this so it could decide whether to include her eldest child in the household.
30. Miss X did not provide the Council with the requested evidence before she gave up the tenancy of her private rented accommodation and moved to live with her mother in early August 2021. She told me she has not yet updated her application to report this change in her circumstances. The Council will reassess Miss X’s housing needs based on her current accommodation once she has updated her application online. Until then, it cannot say whether she is in housing need now.

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Final decision

31. I have completed the investigation and found the Council was at fault because it took too long to make a decision on Miss X’s Housing Register application. It also failed to respond to a significant point Miss X made in her review request.
32. But these faults did not Miss X any significant injustice. She was not overcrowded while she was in the two bedroom flat with her two younger children. When her eldest child moved in, she did not respond to the Council’s request for evidence which would have allowed it to reassess her application and decide whether to include her eldest child. The delay in processing her application was fault but, as Miss X did not qualify to join the Housing Register, that did not cause her injustice.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman