Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about housing allocations because there is no worthwhile outcome we can achieve by our investigation.

The complaint

1. Mr Y complained the Council has placed him incorrectly in lower banding for housing allocations. He also complained that the Council took nine months to carry out an occupational therapy assessment to establish his son’s housing needs, which he says confirmed the current property does not meet his son’s needs.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
3. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’, which we call ‘fault’. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint, which we call ‘injustice’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We do not start or continue an investigation if we decide there is no worthwhile outcome achievable by our investigation.

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

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How I considered this complaint

4. I considered information Mr Y provided and the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. Mr Y currently lives in a privately rented, two-bedroom property with his partner, daughter and son. Mr Y says when he and his family moved into the property it had a separate bath and shower. The landlord removed the bath. Mr Y believes the landlord did this as they intend to convert the loft and needed the bathroom space for a staircase. The landlord removed the bath to begin this work.
6. Mr Y says the accommodation his family currently lives in does not meet the housing needs of his son, who has autism. He says his son is unable to use shower in the current property as this causes him to become severely distressed due to his autism and needs a bath to wash. He also says he is overcrowded as his children, of different genders currently have to share a room, despite his daughter being a teenager.
7. Mr Y applied to go on the Council’s housing register in 2023. He says in April 2024 he asked the Council to carry out an Occupational Therapy (OT) assessment to better understand his family’s housing needs. He says he refused the Council’s request to carry out the assessment by telephone in July 2024 and asked it to carry out an in-person assessment at his home. Mr Y has complained that an assessment was not then competed until January 2025.
8. When the OT assessment was carried out, Mr Y says it found that the current property could not meet his son’s needs, as he was unable to wash in a shower and needed a bath. The Council considered the OT assessment as part of its decision on which band to place Mr Y into for housing allocations. It also considered a letter from Mr Y’s landlord managing agent, in which it said the bath would not be replaced. It placed Mr Y in Band 4 for housing priority. Mr Y subsequently appealed this decision with the Council.
9. The Council decided the letter from the managing agent was not sufficient evidence to meet the criteria to place Mr Y and his family into Band 3 of the Council’s housing allocations policy. It decided his application did not show a moderate medical need for rehousing.
10. The Council said that the circumstances would meet the criteria for the family to apply for a Disabled Facilities Grant (DFG) and said it could refer the matter to the appropriate team to provide information to the landlord, to try to see if the landlord would then allow a bath to be fitted. Without further confirmation from the landlord that a bath could not be fitted following this information being given, the Council said the criteria for Band 3 would not be met, and the family would be placed in Band 4 for housing priority. Mr Y then approached us.
11. Since contacting us, Mr Y has received a valid section 21 notice for eviction from the property. This means that Mr Y’s landlord expects Mr Y and his family to leave the property within the following two months. If Mr Y does not leave, the landlord can apply to the court for a possession order to evict Mr Y.

Analysis

12. The alleged injustice to Mr Y is largely speculative, as we cannot say what would have happened had any alleged delay in issuing the OT report not occurred. We cannot say that this would have led to a bath either being fitted, to make the property suitable, or not and what impact this may have had on the landlord’s actions in issuing a valid section 21 notice sooner, which as two previous notices were issued but were incorrectly completed, seems likely.
13. As Mr Y’s tenancy is now being ended by the landlord and he is being evicted, circumstances have overtaken the issues raised in this complaint. Even if we were to say that there was a delay or that the Council has incorrectly decided Mr Y’s banding, we cannot say how this would impact the situation Mr Y is now in and what would have happened, even if Mr Y believes he knows.
14. Also, as Mr Y says he is soon to be homeless, the Council will need to consider his family’s banding again at this stage based on those circumstances. This assessment is likely to occur in the near future, when Mr Y becomes homeless and any investigation, even if it were to find fault and recommend a remedy to reconsider the existing banding (between the current Band 3 and 4) would be effectively out of date, before a homelessness decision would be made.
15. We are unlikely to be able to conclude that if there had not been a delay or the housing band decision had been band 3 not 4, Mr Y and his family would probably have moved to another properly before being made homeless.
16. For these reasons, there is no worthwhile outcome which we can achieve from an investigation into this complaint. Consequently, we will not investigate.

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Final decision

17. We will not investigate Mr Y’s complaint because there is no worthwhile outcome we can achieve by our investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman