Summary: We have upheld Mrs X’s complaint because the Council delayed considering the suitability of her accommodation and delayed reviewing its banding decision. The Council has agreed to resolve the complaint early by providing a proportionate remedy for the injustice caused to Mrs X.

The complaint

1. Mrs X complains the Council has delayed reviewing its banding decision since July 2025, failed to review the suitability of her current temporary accommodation and handled her complaint poorly. Mrs X says she lacks access to basic hygiene and food and has suffered emotional and physical strain.

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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’. In this statement, I have used the word fault to refer to these. We provide a free service but must use public money carefully. We may decide not to start or continue with an investigation if we are satisfied with the actions an organisation has taken or proposes to take. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(7), as amended)
4. We do not start or continue an investigation if we decide any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))
5. We will not usually investigate complaint handling if we are not investigating the rest of the complaint. This is because there is not usually enough injustice to justify us doing so. We collect information about particularly poor complaint handling practice and report this back to organisations. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), section 34B(8))

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How I considered this complaint

6. I considered information provided by Mrs X and the Council.
7. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

8. If we were to investigate it is likely we would find fault causing Mrs X injustice because the Council should keep the suitability of temporary accommodation under review, yet it failed to treat Mrs X’s concerns as a request to review the suitability of her accommodation as it should have done. Further, in its stage 2 response the Council accepted delay in reviewing its banding decision, apologised, confirmed service improvements, offered a payment and committed to issuing a new decision in May 2026. Yet Mrs X has still not received the Council’s decision.
9. We therefore asked the Council to consider remedying the injustice caused by taking the following actions to resolve the complaint early, within one month of this decision:
• Provide Mrs X with a further apology, taking account of our guidance on remedies which sets out our expectations for how organisations should apologise effectively to remedy injustice.
• Issue a decision to Mrs X’s regarding her banding and housing need.
• Issue a decision to Mrs X on the suitability of her temporary accommodation, taking into account all the information provided to date. Should the Council find it had been unsuitable since July 2025, it should take this into account in offering a remedy to Mrs X. The Council should also have regard to our guidance on remedies.
10. We will not otherwise investigate the Council’s complaint handling as any remaining injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement.

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Agreed action

11. To its credit the Council agreed to resolve the complaint and will complete the actions at paragraph 9, to put things right.

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Final decision

12. We have upheld this complaint because the Council has agreed to resolve the complaint early by providing a proportionate remedy for the injustice caused to Mrs X.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman