London Borough of Redbridge (25 024 314)
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about poor communication and complaint handling. This is because the Council has remedied the injustice to Mrs X during its complaints process.
The complaint
- Mrs X complains about the Council’s delay in considering her homelessness application. She also complains about poor communication and complaint handling.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
- The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
- 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 s34H(1), as amended)
How I considered this complaint
- I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
- I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
- Mrs X complained about the Council's delay in assessing her application to join the housing register. She also complained the Council had not provided login details to enable her to bid on houses and said she was under threat of homelessness due to rent increases.
- The Council agreed it had delayed assessing her application and apologised. It explained that due to long waiting lists, it was unlikely that joining the housing register would resolve any immediate homelessness threat and arranged an appointment to offer advice to prevent homelessness.
- Mrs X said the Council should backdate her application to when she first applied to join the register. Mrs X said she first applied to join the register in 2020. The Council considered Mrs X’s appeal but said it would only backdate the application to the point at which it owed her a prevention duty.
- I will not investigate this complaint. There is not enough evidence of fault in how the Council decided not to backdate Mrs X’s application. The Council apologised for the delay in assessing Mrs X’s application. It has explained how Mrs X can bid on houses and it has confirmed she has accessed the system.
Final decision
- We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because the Council remedied the injustice to Mrs X during its complaints process.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman