Summary: Miss D complained the Council mishandled her homelessness application. I have found fault by the Council. It delayed progressing the case, gave contradictory information to Miss D and failed to fully respond to the formal complaint. The Council accepts it is at fault, is making service improvements and offers redress to Miss D.

The complaint

1. The complainant (whom I refer to as Miss D) says the Council mishandled her homelessness application. She complains the Council failed to add her partner and his children onto her homelessness application. She also says her Housing Solutions Officer changed several times meaning she had to keep resubmitting evidence.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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)
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 significant injustice, or that could cause injustice to others in future 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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What I have and have not investigated

5. I have considered what took place from December 2023 through to 13 December 2024 when the final stage complaint response was issued by the Council.
6. Miss D can complain to the Council about events after December 2024. Once she has completed the complaints process, she can bring a new case to the Ombudsman to consider.
7. Miss D refers to problems with data handling and FOI issues. Those would be for the Information Commissioner, not the Ombudsman, to consider.

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How I considered this complaint

8. I considered evidence provided by Miss D and the Council as well as relevant law, policy and guidance.
9. I shared my draft decision with both parties.

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What I found

What happened

Background

10. Miss D approached the Council for homelessness assistance in January 2023. She was placed into interim accommodation by the Council. She was assigned a Housing Solutions Officer (HS Officer) who subsequently left the Council.

Events I have investigated

11. There is no record of action on the homelessness case from December 2023 until May 2024. The Council says no actions were documented by the HS Officer. On 10 May a Temporary Accommodation Officer (TA Officer) noted they had spoken to Miss D. She had a child staying three times a week. The TA Officer emailed Miss D to clarify the information she had discussed. Because the child was not a full time resident with Miss D the Council might look to move her to a property suitable for the size of the current household. The TA Officer explained the type of evidence Miss D needed to provide. During May Miss D was also in contact with a Rent Officer at the Council. On 29 May she told the Rent Officer there were five people in the temporary accommodation including her partner (Mr E) and his children. At the start of June the Rent Officer notified the Temporary Accommodation Team about the change to occupancy at Miss D’s accommodation. The Temporary Accommodation Team said it would need to inspect the property because the Council had not agreed additional people could reside in the accommodation. At the end of June the Temporary Accommodation Team and HS Officer arranged with Miss D to visit the property in July.
12. On 2 July the HS Officer emailed Miss D, she was due to visit her tomorrow. She asked Miss D to have documents ready to view and detailed what was needed. She explained the Council required the information to establish if there had been a change of circumstances and that evidence on the file which Miss D had previously supplied was two years old. Miss D cancelled the home visit. On 5 July the TA Officer contacted Miss D that up-to-date identification documents were needed. The Officer had located a copy of Miss D’s birth certificate, but Miss D might still need to supply documentation relating to Mr E and his children. The HS Officer would decide if they could be added to the homelessness application. Miss D responded that she needed a larger home, her partner was her carer, and she had told the Council when they moved into her accommodation. On 9 July the HS Officer emailed Miss D. They asked her to confirm that her children did not reside at the property. They also asked for evidence about her partner’s children including court papers to establish who had custody. The HS Officer said Mr E’s children were not currently part of the homelessness application therefore the Council would not provide larger accommodation at present. The next day Miss D sent the Council photographs from some parts of a child protection document along with other benefits information. She also confirmed she had a child stay with her ‘three nights’ and holidays.
13. On 17 July the Council wrote to Miss D. It accepted a main housing duty to her. It explained it considered her to be a single person household because she had not included her partner or his children in the original application. It said she had the right to request a review of the decision. Miss D then emailed the Review Team that she disagreed with the Council’s decision, and she was overcrowded. On 24 July the Reviews Team replied to Miss D. It declined her review request and said it was unclear what decision she wanted reconsidered. It also said Miss D needed to supply documents to the HS Officer including information about her partner and his children. It said Miss D was in breach of the temporary accommodation licence and had failed to send enough information for the Council to assess her new circumstances. Miss D told the Council on 26 July that information would be held by the Social Care Team and she was being passed around. Also in July the Council received an enquiry from Miss D’s Councillor. It responded saying it needed evidence about Miss D’s partner and his children such as a residency order and court papers to establish residency of the children. Currently Mr E and his children were not part of the application, and the Council had to establish the facts before it would consider moving Miss D to another property.
14. On 13 September the TA Officer emailed Miss D. They apologised because notes had been ‘placed incorrectly’ by another member of staff. They would speak to their manager because this had caused Miss D a lot of stress. They had informed the HS Officer to change the details on Miss D’s homelessness application to show who resided at the property and would send all documentation onto the HS Officer. The TA Officer then emailed the HS Officer asking them to add Mr E and his children onto the homelessness application because they resided with her. No documents were forwarded to the HS Officer. The HS Officer responded the same day that a full housing decision had already been issued.

Events after my investigation

15. In January 2025 the Temporary Accommodation Team forwarded documents to the HS Officer which it had received in September 2024 about Miss D’s partner and the residency of his children (including a court order).

What should have happened

The relief duty

16. Councils must take reasonable steps to help to secure suitable accommodation for any eligible homeless person. When a council decides this duty has come to an end, it must notify the applicant in writing (Housing Act 1996, section 189B)

The main housing duty

17. If a council is satisfied an applicant is homeless, eligible for assistance, and has a priority need the council has a duty to secure that accommodation is available for their occupation (unless it refers the application to another housing authority under section 198). But councils will not owe the main housing duty to applicants who have turned down a suitable final accommodation offer or a Housing Act Part 6 offer made during the relief stage, or if a council has given them notice under section 193B(2) due to their deliberate and unreasonable refusal to co-operate. (Housing Act 1996, section 193 and Homelessness Code of Guidance 15.39)

Review rights

18. Homeless applicants may request a review within 21 days of being notified of various decisions including:

• their eligibility for assistance.
• what duty (if any) is owed to them if they are found to be homeless or threatened with homelessness.
• the suitability of accommodation offered to the applicant after a homelessness duty has been accepted (and the suitability of accommodation offered under section 200(3) and section 193). Applicants can request a review of the suitability of accommodation whether or not they have accepted the offer.

19. The Council’s Review Team will consider a review request and notify the applicant about the outcome.

Housing Solutions Officer

20. When a homeless person applies for assistance to the Council they are assigned a Housing Solutions Officer. That Officer is responsible for making enquiries into the application to enable the Council to reach a decision on the case. The Officer should ensure a case is progressed regularly.

Adding people to a homelessness application

21. Where a homelessness applicant asks the Council to add people onto their application the Council must be satisfied, they are homeless and usually live with the applicant. The Council will require evidence from the applicant to show the additions to the application are homeless and a person reasonably expected to live with the applicant. The evidence needs to be recent. Where there is a request to add children to the application the Council will need evidence such as court orders to show the child’s care arrangements and residency. If the child’s principal home is elsewhere, they will not usually be included as part of the homelessness application. If the Council does not receive sufficient contemporaneous evidence to support a request for additions to the homelessness application, it will not agree to the request. The decision on who is added to an application sits with the Housing Solutions Team.

Was there fault by the Council

22. The Council failed to take action to progress the homelessness application from December 2023 (the start of my investigation period) through to May 2024. The Council accepts this ‘negatively impacted the case management’ and there was inconsistency in its contact with Miss D. This failure to reasonably progress the case meant the Council also delayed reaching its main housing duty.
23. There was confusion between teams which caused Miss D to be wrongly informed. The TA Team told Miss D in September 2024 that Mr E and his children would be part of the homelessness application. That was not a decision for the TA Team to make, the decision sat with the HS Officer. Furthermore a main duty decision had already been reached on the case.
24. Miss D says she had to resubmit evidence to the Council unnecessarily. The evidence indicates that Miss D had (and may have continued) to submit documentation to her original HS Officer who left the Council in 2023. The subsequent HS Officer correctly advised Miss D that up-to-date information was needed for items including bank statements. I note that Miss D was afforded the opportunity to meet with Officers and go through the evidence she had to submit but she cancelled that appointment. However, I consider there is fault by the Council and there was a lack of ownership in this case. The Council accepts this fault and says there were no professional meetings to collaborate about the case or a decision on the main point of contact. Had there been a more thought out approach the Council could have been clearer with Miss D about what evidence it had and what was needed.
25. Miss D says the Council should have included Mr E and his children onto her application. In a case like this the Council will only add a partner onto an application if it can evidence the person is homeless and meets the homelessness application criteria. As set out above there was a failure to be clear with Miss D about what type of information was needed, in particular about Mr E’s circumstances as the Council focussed more on Mr E’s children. The Council reached a decision to not add Mr E onto the application because it did not have enough information about his situation but in part that was due to fault by the Council. It could have been clearer about what information it required.
26. The Council mishandled Miss D’s review request in July 2024. Instead of rejecting her request it could and should have asked her to clarify what decision she wanted reviewed. This resulted in a lost opportunity for Miss D.
27. The Council failed to respond fully to Miss D’s complaints. The initial complaints response failed to address her concerns about how information about Mr E had been processed.

Did the fault cause an injustice

28. The fault by the Council meant Miss D had to longer than reasonable for main housing duty decision on her application. She was also caused avoidable confusion, time and trouble and a lost opportunity to have the housing decision reviewed.

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Action

29. The Council accepts there is fault in this case. It apologises and will pay Miss D £500 for the avoidable distress and time and trouble she was caused. I consider that a reasonable remedy.
30. In addition the Council is making service improvements. It has already made recommendations about training and case management because of this case. It is also developing an online portal to help applicant’s submit documents in a more ordered manner.
31. The Council should provide us with evidence it has paid Miss D’s redress within four weeks of this case closing.

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Decision

32. I find fault causing injustice. I am closing the investigation because the Council accepts fault and has offered a remedy.

Investigator’s decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman