Bristol City Council (19 004 898)

Category : Housing > Homelessness

Decision : Upheld

Decision date : 16 Dec 2019

The Ombudsman's final decision:

Summary: Mr X complains the Council told his prospective landlord he intended to claim housing benefit, causing the withdrawal of an offer of a tenancy and embarrassment. He also says it mishandled his request for a review of his housing priority band. The Ombudsman found no fault in the Council’s approach. It did not communicate directly with his landlord and it considered Mr X’s evidence why it should increase his housing band but disagreed it should. There was fault in how the Council explained its rule on not investigating complaints older than 12 months. While this caused Mr X no significant injustice, the Council agreed to the Ombudsman’s recommendation to provide a better explanation to others in future.

The complaint

  1. Mr X complains the Council told a prospective private landlord he intended to claim housing benefit, having assured him it would make no such disclosure. He says this caused him embarrassment and the offer to rent the property was withdrawn. Later, Mr X says the Council mishandled his request for a review of his housing list priority band. As a result, he remains homeless and he holds the Council responsible for this.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

  1. We investigate complaints of injustice caused by ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. I have used the word ‘fault’ to refer to these. We cannot question whether a council’s decision is right or wrong simply because the complainant disagrees with it. We must consider whether there was fault in the way the decision was reached. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended)
  2. If we are satisfied with a council’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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How I considered this complaint

  1. I spoke with Mr X and we discussed his complaint. I wrote to the Council to make enquiries and reviewed the information it sent in response.
  2. I have taken account of the Council’s housing allocations scheme.
  3. I shared a copy of my draft decision with Mr X and the Council and I invited them to comment on it.

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What I found

  1. Mr X is homeless. He says the Council kept him homeless in March 2018 by making a mistake with the accommodation he was going to rent. He says the Council told the landlord he would be claiming housing benefit even though its officers had previously told him not to divulge the information. Mr X says the landlord then told him he could not move in and withheld his deposit. He says it took a long time before he got the deposit back.
  2. The Council says it does not advise members of the public ‘to be dishonest to a landlord’. It accepts it might suggest people concentrate on positives when speaking to potential landlords. It says this could mean talking about good references, employment history and future prospects. It says it sent a letter addressed to Mr X to his new address a few days before he intended to move in.
  3. The Council has no record now to explain why it sent the letter to the new address. However, it points out the postal service later returned letters it sent around the same time to his previous address as undelivered. It provided a copy of the letter to the Ombudsman as evidence of where and when it sent it.
  4. Mr X also complains about the Council’s approach to his band on the housing list. The Ombudsman may not find fault with a council’s assessment of a housing applicant’s priority if it has carried this out in line with its published allocations scheme. The Council’s scheme places applicants into four bands. Band 1 is for the highest priority cases and Band 4 is for those who do not fall into another of the other categories. The Council says it told Mr X it had put him in Band 3 on its housing list in April 2018.
  5. If applicants are homeless, but the Council has not accepted a duty to house them, it places their applications in Band 3. The letter it sent Mr X informed him he had 21 days to appeal the decision. That would involve a more senior officer considering the case. However, the Council says the first contact from Mr X about it was not until August. It says it told him while he was too late to hold a review, he could advise it of any change in his circumstances and it would decide if it needed to change his band.
  6. Mr X sent this to the Council in September 2018 by email. He called the Council in October to check it had received it. Records show it told him it had and it would take 12 to 14 weeks to make a decision. The Council says it wrote to Mr X in mid-December to tell him it had considered his submission and found no reason to change his housing band.
  7. In January 2019, Mr X sent an email asking for another review. He said he wanted the Council to reconsider his health situation and why he left his previous accommodation. The Council says it wrote back to Mr X within three days, saying if he sent supporting information within four weeks it would consider what he said. However, a note on the file in early March says Mr X had not replied by that deadline and so it kept him in Band 3.
  8. Mr X says the Council gave him the wrong email address and he had to wait 18 weeks for a reply but heard nothing. In May 2019, Mr X called and spoke with an officer who told him the result of his requests saw no change. The Council however says this was not a fresh decision, simply a restatement of its existing position.
  9. Finally, in June 2019, the Council told Mr X it would not consider his complaint about the letter to his landlord in March 2018 because the events happened more than 12 months ago. It did not provide any reasons at the time but said this was in line with its policy. It has since told the Ombudsman it did check the file but saw no obvious fault and decided Mr X had no significant mitigation to explain why he did not complain sooner. It says the 12-month rule involves a presumption against investigating that must be overcome.
  10. Mr X says he feels the Council’s error in not responding to his housing band request pushed his complaint outside the normal 12-month period for him to make his complaint to us. He says he would have taken the matter further sooner, but the Council had assured him it would deal with it.

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Analysis

  1. The Ombudsman is not an appeals body and I cannot substitute my own views of what a decision should be for those of a trained and experienced Council officer. The law entitles Council officers to decide cases based on their professional judgement. So long as any decision is taken without fault, the Ombudsman will not interfere with it. That applies even where Mr X might strongly disagree with the result.
  2. I investigated the issue of the letter sent to Mr X’s prospective new address in March 2018. Mr X told me the arrangement saw his new landlord also living in the property. Having seen the letter, I note the Council addressed it correctly to Mr X only. There is no evidence it had any direct communication with his landlord.
  3. I am satisfied this situation does not result in fault. On balance, the only reasonable conclusion I can reach is the prospective landlord opened the letter addressed to Mr X. I cannot hold the Council responsible for the actions of someone else.
  4. The Council has also now explained to the Ombudsman why it chose not to investigate Mr X’s complaint about the letter when it received it in June 2019. I consider the reasons themselves are not fault, as they reflect the professional judgement of the complaints officer who dealt with it. However, the way the Council explained the decision to Mr X was fault. It gave the impression the 12-month rule applied strictly. While this did not cause him any injustice, as his complaint would not have been investigated regardless, I recommend the Council should provide more explanation in future cases to improve its service to complainants.
  5. I also considered the Council’s response to Mr X’s request it should put him into a higher housing band.
  6. The evidence I have seen does not support a view there was fault in the Council’s process to consider whether Mr X’s housing band was correct. I have not investigated the original decision taken in April 2018. Mr X could have asked for a review of that decision and it was reasonable to expect him to do so.
  7. The Council has provided copies of its correspondence with Mr X and I consider it provided clear explanations. Although Mr X was homeless, it often sent letters by email so he had access to them. It explained it would not carry out a review of his housing band because of the time that had passed. However, it offered to consider any change in circumstances and read the information he provided. It decided Band 3 was still appropriate for him and told him this.
  8. If Mr X had been able to provide evidence showing he suffered from severe harassment, or was under real threat of harm, the Council could have considered whether it should move him into Band 2. Mr X did not provide the evidence the Council asked for and so there was no reason not to close its consideration of his case in March 2019. While there may be valid reasons why Mr X did not provide the evidence in time, I cannot see any of those reasons are due to fault by the Council.

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Agreed action

  1. By 31 March 2020, the Council has agreed to add guidance to its complaints policy stating officers applying the 12 month rule should include an explanation of any evidence taken into account when refusing to investigate a complaint for that reason.
  2. The Council should write to the Ombudsman when it has completed this action.

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Final decision

  1. While there was no fault in the Council’s decision-making in this case, it should have provided a better explanation to Mr X about why it would not investigate his complaint about events 15 months earlier. This did not cause him any significant injustice as the result would have been the same.

Investigator’s final decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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