Summary: the Council is taking far too long to process Miss X’s application to join its Housing Register and make a decision. That is fault and the continuing delay is causing Miss X uncertainty and distress.

The complaint

1. Miss X complained about the Council’s long delay in processing her request for a review of a decision made in February 2022 that she cannot join the Housing Register because she is not in housing need. She believes she meets the Council’s criteria and is in housing need.
2. She says the mould in her privately rented flat and the anti-social behaviour of another tenant in the building is adversely affecting her health and triggers anxiety and panic attacks.

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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 an organisation’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 considered:
• the information provided by Miss X and the Council;
• relevant law and guidance, as set out below; and
• our guidance on remedies, which is available on our website.
6. I gave Miss X and the Council the opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I considered their comments before making a final decision.

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What I found

Housing allocations scheme

7. Every local housing authority must publish an allocations scheme that sets out how it prioritises applicants, and its procedures for allocating housing.  Most councils keep a housing register which records information about applicants waiting for housing. All allocations must be made in strict accordance with the published scheme. (Housing Act 1996, section 166A(1) & (14))
8. The law says 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;
  (Housing Act 1996, section 166A(3))
9. There is high demand for a short supply of social housing in Croydon. The Council says it had to raise the bar to decide who qualifies for reasonable preference. Only applicants who meet one or more of the reasonable preference criteria as defined in Croydon’s published housing allocations scheme are accepted on the Housing Register.
10. Croydon’s allocations scheme gives the following definitions:

Insanitary or unsatisfactory housing: there must be at least one verified Category 1 hazard (defined under the Housing Health and Safety Rating System) which cannot be resolved by the landlord within 6 months AND the condition of the property must have at least a moderate effect on the applicant’s health;

Health related housing need (medical grounds): applicants who need to move because their current accommodation at least moderately affects their medical condition. It may seek independent medical advice to inform its assessment.

Processing the housing application and reviews of decisions

11. There is no statutory timescale to process a housing application. However, the Ombudsman usually expects councils to process a housing application within four to six weeks.
12. Applicants have the right to request a review of decisions about their Housing Register application, including whether they qualify to join the Housing Register. Croydon Council’s housing allocations scheme says a senior officer will make a review decision within 56 days of receiving the request (unless the applicant agrees to a longer period).

Miss X’s circumstances

13. Miss X lives alone in a one bedroom privately rented flat. She has lived there since 2009.
14. On 10 January 2022 Miss X completed an online Housing Register application form. She referred to a recurring problem with mould and condensation in her flat. She also said it was poorly ventilated and had infestations. She said the landlord’s contractors had carried out some works but these had not resolved the underlying problems.
15. Miss X also completed the medical questionnaire on the form. She said she had a respiratory condition which affected her breathing, had sleep apnoea and was allergic to mould. She included the names and contact details of her GP and consultant.
16. On 15 February 2022 the housing service informed Miss X it had assessed her application. It decided she did not meet the threshold of housing need and she could not join the Housing Register. It went on to say that if she had completed a medical questionnaire, it would be passed to the appropriate team for assessment. The team would write to inform her of the outcome in due course.
17. The letter also said she could request a review within 21 days if she disagreed with the decision. It said the Council would make the review decision within 56 days, unless the case was complex and it needed more time.
18. On 25 February Miss X wrote to ask for a review of the decision. She sent recent photographs of the black mould in the flat. She gave more information about incidents of anti-social behaviour (ASB) and threats made by the tenant of another flat in the building. She included some of her correspondence with the police. She explained the impact of the mould and the ASB on her medical conditions and sent supporting medical evidence. She argued that she did meet the Council’s criteria to join the Housing Register and asked a senior manager to consider her request.
19. On 28 February the Council acknowledged Miss X’s letter. It had been passed to the Housing Register and Advice team to assess her needs. It also said it may take longer than 56 days to complete the review if the case was complex.
20. In May 2022 Miss X contacted her MP to ask for his support because the Council had not contacted her within 56 days. He wrote to the Council on Miss X’s behalf. In a subsequent email to Miss X, he said he wrote to the Council on 27 May and forwarded a letter from Miss X had sent him from a healthcare professional. In response to our enquiries, the Council says it did not receive any medical evidence from the MP then. Miss X disputes this statement.
21. Miss X contacted the MP again in July and August 2022 to ask if he had received a response.
22. In early October the MP’s office forwarded to Miss X an email from a manager in the Housing Register & Advice team. The manager said Miss X’s application was still being assessed. However, based on the information he had seen so far, he thought it unlikely she would meet the threshold to join the Housing Register. He suggested Miss X could search for another private rented property.
23. Miss X replied and said she strongly disagreed with the manager’s view. She told the MP she could prove she met the criteria. She continued to correspond with the MP over the next few months. In early November 2022 she sent the MP, in confidence, a letter from her therapy team and asked him not to share this with the Council.
24. In January 2023 Miss X complained to us. She said the Council had ignored the review request she had made more than ten months earlier. It had also failed to respond to the evidence her MP had passed on.
25. In response to our enquiries, the Council said:

We are not processing an appeal as the application is undergoing assessment – the outcome of the assessment has not been determined, so no appeal is necessary, at this stage. Miss [X] received housing advice via the local MP in relation to her question about rehousing. The advice stated that the application was still under assessment. During the assessment, we will investigate whether there are any health-related housing needs and consider all the evidence submitted.

We have contacted Miss [X] to apologise for the delays and any confusion she has over the process; also, to request more housing related information, in relation to the health concerns she has raised as we are unable to make a full assessment from the information she has submitted. We have provided further guidance on how we make assessments, i.e., it is not the presence of a medical condition that attracts a housing priority on health-related housing grounds.  We are awaiting Miss [X’s] response.

26. The Council told me it could not say when it would make a decision on Miss X’s application. It had received some evidence from Miss X’s support worker on 5 April. It contacted Miss X on 12 April 2023 to ask for more evidence about her health conditions and how these were affected by the accommodation. It also contacted the support worker to ask when Miss X had last reported mould problems to her landlord. It advised her to contact the Private Sector Housing team if the landlord did not respond.
27. Miss X’s GP surgery sent evidence to the Council on 28 April 2023. Her support worker also replied to the enquiries. Miss X has sent further reminders to the Council since then. She says the continuing delay is affecting her health and causing her emotional distress.

Backlog of Housing Register applications

28. In April 2023 we completed our investigation of another complaint about Croydon Council’s delay in assessing a Housing Register application.
29. The Council told us then there was a delay of 20 months in assessing Housing Register applications. It has been working on a new housing database for two years and expects to implement it in the summer of 2023. It hopes this will reduce waiting times. However the new database may increase delays in the short term while staff get used to the new way of working.
30. In April 2023 the Council accepted our recommendation for a service improvement as part of the remedy for that complaint. It agreed to review its process for assessing housing register applications (including new applications, change of circumstances requests and review requests). It also agreed to consider what more it could do to reduce current delays in addition to implementing the new database. This may include recruiting or redeploying and training additional staff to address the backlog. It agreed to complete this review by early July 2023 and send us an action plan setting out what it proposes to do.

My analysis

31. The letter the Council sent to Miss X on 15 February 2022 was confusing and contradictory. On the one hand, it said she did not qualify to join the Housing Register because she was not in housing need. This was expressed as a decision and not a provisional view. It said she could request a review within 21 days.
32. However the letter also said her application would be passed on for a medical assessment. Until the medical assessment is completed, the Council cannot decide whether Miss X is in housing need and qualifies to join the Housing Register. So it was misleading and confusing to send a letter saying a final decision had been made which carried review rights when the medical assessment had not been done. That was fault.
33. In February 2022 Miss X requested a review because she disagreed with the decision that she was not in housing need. She expected to hear from the Council within 56 days. But the Council did not contact her again until mid-April 2023 after we made enquiries about her complaint. It then asked for more information for the health needs assessment. Miss X has now sent in that evidence and is still waiting for the Council to make a final decision.
34. The excessive delay in processing Miss X’s application is fault. Miss X has waited 17 months so far for a decision. That is far too long and regrettably this is not an isolated case. The Council has thousands of applications waiting to be assessed and applicants wait more than a year for a decision. The Council has already accepted the recommendations we made in a previous investigation to reduce the backlog and waiting times.
35. We cannot decide whether Miss X meets the Council’s criteria to be accepted on the Housing Register. Only the Council can make that decision after it has completed the medical assessment and considered all the relevant evidence. But the delay is unreasonable and it continues to cause Miss X significant frustration, worry and uncertainty. As Miss X has an anxiety condition, the continuing uncertainty about the outcome is having an even greater impact on her.

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Agreed action

36. Within two weeks of the final decision, the Council will:
• apologise to Miss X for the delay in processing her application;
• review the medical evidence it received in late April and make a final decision about whether she qualifies to join the Housing Register;
• inform her in writing of its decision, giving reasons, and notify her of her review rights;
• establish what happened to the medical evidence Miss X’s MP sent to the Council on 27 May 2022 which appears not to have reached Miss X’s housing file and inform Miss X;
• pay Miss X £350 to recognise the distress and frustration caused by its long delay in processing her application. This payment reflects the excessive delay and the significant impact this continues to have on Miss X because of her anxiety condition.
37. Within one month of the final decision, the Council will:
• review the template letters it sends to applicants to ensure they explain clearly whether the Housing Register assessment has been completed and whether a final decision has been made which carries review rights.
38. The Council has already accepted our recommendation for service improvements in our recent investigation of another complaint. So there is no need to make any further recommendations. It should provide us with evidence by 5 July 2023 that it has completed the review and prepared an action plan to reduce the significant backlog and delays in processing applications.
39. It should also provide us with evidence that it has complied with the above actions.

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Final decision

40. I have completed the investigation and found the Council was at fault and this caused injustice to Miss X.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman