Summary: Mr X complained the Council placed him in an incorrect priority band for his housing register application and did not respond to his calls and emails. He says the Council’s actions negatively impacted his mental health and meant he was homeless for longer than necessary. We found fault by the Council. The Council has agreed to apologise to Mr X, review its decision regarding Mr X’s priority status, and carry out service improvements to avoid the fault re-occurring.

The complaint

1. Mr X complained the Council placed him in an incorrect priority band for his housing register application and did not respond to his calls and emails. Mr X says the Council’s actions negatively impacted his mental health and meant he was homeless for longer than necessary. He would like the Council to place him in the correct housing band and provide him with housing.

Back to top

The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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 significant injustice, or that could cause injustice to others in the future we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)
3. 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)

Back to top

How I considered this complaint

4. I discussed the complaint with Mr X and considered the information he provided.
5. I made enquiries to the Council and considered the information it provided.
6. Mr X and the Council had the opportunity to comment on a draft of this decision. I considered their comments before making a final decision.

Back to top

What I found

Housing allocations

7. Every local housing authority must publish an 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. (Housing Act 1996, section 166A(1) & (14))
8. 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. Statutory guidance on the allocation of accommodation says notifications provided by local authorities must give clear grounds for their decisions based on the relevant facts of the case.
10. Housing applicants can ask the council to review a wide range of decisions about their applications, including decisions about their housing priority.
11. The statutory guidance says:

• review procedures should be clear and fair with timescales for each stage of the process
• there should be a timescale for requesting a review - 21 days is suggested as reasonable;
• the review should be carried out by an officer senior to the original decision maker, or by a panel not including the original decision maker;
• reviews should normally be completed within a set deadline - 8 weeks is suggested as reasonable.

Homelessness

12. Part 7 of the Housing Act 1996 and the Homelessness Code of Guidance for Local Authorities set out councils’ powers and duties to people who are homeless or threatened with homelessness.
13. If someone contacts a council seeking accommodation or help to obtain accommodation and gives ‘reason to believe’ they ‘may be’ homeless or threatened with homelessness within 56 days, the council has a duty to make inquiries into what, if any, further duty it owes them. The threshold for triggering the duty to make inquiries is low. The person does not have to complete a specific form or approach a particular department of the council. (Housing Act 1996, section 184 and Homelessness Code of Guidance paragraphs 6.2 and 18.5)
14. Councils can suggest alternative solutions in cases of potential homelessness where these would be suitable and acceptable to the applicant. However, councils must not do this to avoid their legal duties, especially the duty to make inquiries into the applicant’s homelessness. The Ombudsman has criticised councils for ‘gatekeeping’ practices, for example, failing to take a homelessness application at the earliest opportunity.
15. The Housing Act 1996 does not limit the number of applications that an applicant can make; applicants can apply to more than one local authority at the same time.
16. A local authority may ask the applicant at the initial interview if they have applied to another authority. If so, one authority may contact the other to agree which will take the responsibility for carrying out inquiries. If the authority carrying out inquiries reaches an unfavourable decision, the applicant may then ask the other authority to make its own inquiries.
17. Each authority must make its own, independent inquiries in response to all applications; a local authority must still make inquiries into any duty it owes, even where another local authority has failed to make inquiries or accept a duty.

What happened

18. This chronology includes key events in this case and does not cover everything that happened.
19. Mr X applied to join the Council’s housing register in 2021. At that time, Mr X was living with one of his parents.
20. In August 2023, Mr X told the Council he had moved to an address in a different borough.
21. On 20 September 2023, Mr X approached the Council as homeless. At the time, Mr X was living in another borough; Mr X told the Council he was going to make a separate homelessness approach to the other borough as well. The Council told Mr X it would close its homelessness case because it said he could not have a case open with both boroughs. The Council closed its case and told Mr X he could make a new application if he needed any further assistance.
22. On 22 September 2023, the Council told Mr X to complete an online form if there had been any changes in his circumstances regarding his application to the housing register.
23. Mr X completed a change of circumstances form on 26 September 2023.
24. On 27 September 2023, the Council wrote to Mr X to notify him that it had assessed his housing register application. The Council confirmed it had placed Mr X on the housing register and had assessed his priority as a “Priority Homeseeker", with an award date of 27 September 2023.

Mr X’s complaint

25. Mr X contacted the Council on 21 November 2023 and said he had been trying to contact the housing register team for several weeks. Mr X said the Council had placed him in an incorrect priority band; he said he considered his circumstances meant he should be placed in a higher priority band on the housing register. At the same time, Mr X made another homelessness approach to the Council. He said he had been sleeping on the street and staying on friends’ sofas.
26. Mr X completed a homelessness assistance application on 4 December 2023. He told the Council he had been couch surfing for several months, but his friends were no longer willing or able to accommodate him.
27. The Council made inquiries regarding Mr X’s homelessness approach. As part of its consideration of Mr X’s case, the Council changed his housing register priority date to 21 November 2023, to match the date Mr X made his homelessness approach.
28. The Council provided its stage one complaint response on 19 December 2023. The Council said its initial housing register assessment was accurate but had since been updated due to Mr X’s recent circumstances. The Council said Mr X did not meet the residency criteria of its housing allocations policy, but he did still have a housing register application with a Priority Homeseeker status, based on his homelessness application. The Council said Mr X’s status category date was 21 November 2023 as that was the date Mr X made his then current homelessness prevention application.
29. The Council said it had checked for contact from Mr X but had only found emails querying the same issue as raised in the complaint. The Council told Mr X it did not uphold his complaint.
30. Mr X contacted the Council again as he was unhappy with the stage one response.
31. The Council provided its stage two response on 2 April 2024. It told Mr X it did not uphold his complaint and stated his housing register application remained in the same priority group. The Council also said it had only found three emails from Mr X; it said Mr X could request a medical assessment if he felt he had a medical condition that should be considered by the Council.
32. Mr X remained dissatisfied with the Council’s response and brought the complaint to us.

Analysis – the Council’s notification letter

33. The Council says it considered the information Mr X provided as part of his online housing register application and his change of circumstances form. The Council says it awarded the Priority Homeseeker status to Mr X because it considered he was not adequately housed; it awarded Mr X reasonable preference on the grounds that his current home was unsuitable either due to overcrowding or unsuitable living conditions.
34. It is the Council’s decision to determine in which priority band to place each applicant, based on the information provided to it. However, once a council has made its decision, it should provide an explanation to the applicant as to how it made that decision. Statutory guidance says, “The notification must give clear grounds for the decision based on the relevant facts of the case”.
35. The decision letter should also inform the client of their right to request a review of that decision, how to do so and the timeframe in which to request it. Statutory guidance says, “Review procedures should be clearly set out, including timescales for each stage of the process, and must accord with the principles of transparency and fairness”.
36. The Council’s decision letter to Mr X dated 27 September 2023 states the decision to place him in the Priority Homeseeker band was made “based on the information that you have provided to us.” The letter does not provide any further explanation. There is some additional text at the bottom of each page, in very small font, which says, “All tenants and clients have the right to appeal against decisions made by Council Officer, to complain about the service they have received, and to have access to their individual personal files. If you do not wish information you provide to be seen by the tenant or client please say so in your reply”.
37. The Council’s decision letter dated 27 September 2023 does not give clear grounds for the decision; it simply states the Council’s assessment is based on the information provided to it. In addition, the decision letter does not clearly inform Mr X of his right to request a review, how to do so and the timeframe in which to request it; it simply states clients have a right to appeal against decisions made by the Council. As a result, the decision letter dated 27 September 2023 is not in line with statutory guidance. The Council is therefore at fault regarding this aspect of the complaint.

Mr X’s disagreement with the Council’s decision

38. Mr X contacted the Council on 21 November 2023 and said he considered its priority band decision was incorrect; he asked the Council to assist.
39. The Council considered this contact as a complaint and provided a stage one response on 19 December 2023, and a stage two response on 2 April 2024.
40. The Council’s complaints policy defines a complaint as an expression of dissatisfaction about the standard of service, actions or lack of action by the organisation, its own staff, or those acting on its behalf.
41. A request for a review of a council’s decision is not the same as making a complaint. This is because a request for a review relates to disagreement with a decision, not dissatisfaction with the standard of service, actions, or lack of action.
42. Statutory guidance says housing authorities must inform applicants that they have a right to information about certain decisions which are taken in respect of their application, and the right to review those decisions.
43. The Council’s response to my enquiries confirms the Council reviewed Mr X’s application as part of its complaints process rather than as a request for a review as set out by the statutory guidance.
44. I acknowledge the Council says it reviewed Mr X’s application as part of the complaint process and found the priority provided throughout the lifetime of the application was correct. However, the complaint process is separate to the review process; the complaint process considers dissatisfaction with the standard of service, actions, or lack of action, whereas the review process is a statutory process to review how the Council made its decision.
45. The failure to consider Mr X’s disagreement with the Council’s banding decision as a review request is fault. The injustice to Mr X as a result of the fault identified above is a missed opportunity to have his disagreement with the Council’s banding decision considered as a review request, in line with the statutory guidance.

Mr X’s complaint that the Council did not respond to emails and calls

46. My enquiries to the Council asked it to provide copies of the contacts made by Mr X, (including notes from telephone calls), dating from September 2023. I have reviewed the information provided to me by Mr X and the Council, including case notes relating to calls made to and received from Mr X.
47. I have seen no evidence of fault regarding the Council’s response to contact from Mr X. I acknowledge Mr X says he sent several emails to different officers and made several calls which were not returned. The case notes and Council records show a limited record of contact from Mr X, but they do not indicate the Council failed to respond. As a result, based on the evidence reviewed, the Council is not at fault regarding this aspect of the complaint.

The Council’s handling of Mr X’s homelessness application

48. The Council’s records confirm Mr X approached the Council as homeless in September 2023. The case note dated 20 September 2023 states Mr X advised the Council that he was also going to approach another local authority as homeless.
49. The Council told Mr X he could not have a homelessness case open with two boroughs; it closed Mr X’s homelessness case and said if he needed further assistance, he would need to make a new application. Mr X approached the Council as homeless again in November 2023.
50. As previously stated, if someone contacts a council seeking accommodation or help to obtain accommodation and gives ‘reason to believe’ they ‘may be’ homeless or threatened with homelessness within 56 days, the council has a duty to make inquiries into what, if any, further duty it owes them.
51. The Housing Act 1996 does not limit the number of applications that can be made; applicants can apply to more than one local authority at the same time. Each authority must make its own, independent inquiries in response to all applications; a local authority must still make inquiries into any duty it owes, even where another local authority has failed to make inquiries or accept a duty.
52. The Council did not make inquiries when Mr X approached it as homeless in September 2023. Instead, it incorrectly told him he could not have a homelessness case open with it and another local authority at the same time. The Council closed its homelessness case as a result.
53. The Council provided incorrect information to Mr X regarding the ability to have open homelessness cases with more than one local authority at a time. This, together with its failure to make inquiries in September 2023 is fault.
54. The injustice to Mr X is distress and a delay in the Council considering his homelessness case, and the potential impact of this on Mr X’s housing register priority date.

Back to top

Agreed action

55. To address the injustice identified, the Council has agreed to take the following action within one month of the final decision:
1. Provide an apology to Mr X for the fault identified. We publish guidance on remedies which sets out our expectations for how organisations should apologise effectively to remedy injustice. The organisation should consider this guidance in making the apology I have recommended in my findings;
2. Reconsider Mr X’s case regarding his Priority Homeseeker status, including reviewing the date this priority was awarded due to Mr X approaching as homeless in September 2023.
3. Make a symbolic payment of £150 to Mr X in recognition of the distress caused;
4. Remind staff that the Housing Act 1996 does not limit the number of homelessness applications that can be made and that applicants can apply to more than one local authority at the same time;
5. Remind staff to ensure they consider contacts from applicants about dissatisfaction with a priority band decision as potential review requests, not only as complaints, and
6. Remind staff to ensure the Council’s decision/notification letters to applicants clearly explain the right to request a review, including timescales, and also provide clear grounds for the decision.
56. The Council should provide us with evidence it has complied with the above actions.

Back to top

Final decision

57. I have found fault by the Council and the Council has agreed to take the above action to remedy the complaint. I have therefore concluded my investigation.

Investigator’s decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

Back to top

Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman