Summary: There is fault by the Council because it failed to identify and deal with Mr X’s request for a review of the suitability of his accommodation. The Council also failed to follow up repairs’ issues with its managing agent in a timely manner. This caused Mr X avoidable frustration. The Council will take action to remedy the injustice described at the end of this statement.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains Westminster City Council (the Council) placed him in two unsuitable properties and did not respond to his requests for reasonable adjustments. He says this ruined his life and partly led to his child being removed. He wants a payment to reflect this and for the Council to place him in suitable housing.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. The law says we cannot normally investigate a complaint when someone could take the matter to court. However, we may decide to investigate if we consider it would be unreasonable to expect the person to go to court. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(6)(c), as amended.)
3. We normally expect complainants to use any statutory review and court appeal rights available to them, but this does not prevent us from considering whether a council delayed in identifying a request for a review.
4. 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 an injustice, we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)
5. 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

6. I considered Mr X’s complaint to us and supporting documents, the Council’s response to my enquiries and documents described later in this statement.
7. Mr X and the Council had an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I considered any comments received before making a final decision.

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What I found

Relevant law and guidance

8. If a council has ‘reason to believe’ someone may be homeless or threatened with homelessness, it must take a homelessness application and make inquiries. (Housing Act 1996, section 184 and Homelessness Code of Guidance paragraphs 6.2 and 18.5) 
9. A council must secure accommodation for applicants and their household if it has reason to believe they may be homeless, eligible for assistance and have a priority need. (Housing Act 1996, section 188). Councils describe housing they provide under section 188 as ‘interim accommodation’ or they may refer to applicants as being owed ‘the interim duty’.
10. If a council is satisfied an applicant is homeless, eligible for assistance, and has a priority need the council has a duty to secure them accommodation. An applicant in this situation is owed ‘the main housing duty.’ (Housing Act 1996, section 193)
11. The law says councils must ensure all accommodation provided to homeless applicants is suitable for them and their household.  This duty applies to interim accommodation and accommodation provided under the main housing duty.  (Housing Act 1996, section 206 and (from 3 April 2018) Homelessness Code of Guidance 17.2)
12. Councils must consider the location of accommodation when they consider if it is suitable for the applicant and members of their household. If a council places an applicant outside its district, it must consider, among other matters:
• the distance of the accommodation from the “home” district;
  the significance of any disruption to the education of members of the applicant’s household;
• the proximity and accessibility to local services, amenities and transport. (Homelessness (Suitability of Accommodation) Order 2012)
13. The Homelessness Code of Guidance says accommodation provided to fulfill the interim housing duty may not necessarily be suitable for a longer period, for example to discharge the main housing duty. (Paragraph 17.7)
14. The Council’s procedures for assessing the suitability of interim accommodation say:
• The most suitable vacancy must be picked from those available. Size and make up of household versus size of accommodation available must be considered.
• Officers should check journey time for work and school, especially for children in GCSE or ‘A’ level years. They should also check any journey times to hospital/clinics.
• Families and pregnant women should be placed in self-contained vacancies.
• The officer should complete a placement information form and identify and discuss any risk issues with a manager. They should enter notes on the database to reflect the above considerations.
15. Certain housing decisions have rights of review and appeal. These include a decision that accommodation is suitable after a council has accepted the main housing duty. (Housing Act 1996, section 202). Decisions about the suitability of interim accommodation do not have statutory review and appeal rights.
16. Public authorities, including councils, must make reasonable adjustments to services to allow disabled people to access services or to remove or reduce the effect of a person’s disability when they use the service. The duty to make reasonable adjustments is anticipatory. What is reasonable is for the public body to decide. (Equality Act 2010, section 20)

What happened

17. Mr X and his partner made a homeless application in November 2018. The Council placed them in a self-contained 3rd floor room in a property with a lift, in a different area.
18. The Council told me the officer who placed Mr X and his partner completed a health questionnaire and referred to medical information supplied by Mr X. The Council has not provided me with any documentation to evidence how the officer decided the property was suitable.
19. Mr X complained to the Council a few days later. The Council responded saying it placed him out of the area because of the high demand for emergency housing, but it would see if it could move him elsewhere.
20. In January 2019, the Council placed Mr X in a one-bedroom ground floor flat in another area. The Council told me it moved Mr X because of concerns he raised about anti-social behaviour, rather than because the property was unsuitable. The Council provided me with no documentation to evidence how it considered the suitability of the second property.
21. In February 2019, an occupational therapist (OT) from another council assessed Mr X and made recommendations about his long-term housing needs. The OT’s recommendations for Mr X included: storage for an outdoor wheelchair, a low step shower, a garden for an epilepsy dog and level access or a lift.
22. In June, the Council moved Mr X to a one-bedroom second floor lifted flat in a north London borough. The Council told me it moved Mr X because the owner of the previous property asked the Council to move him due to Mr X cluttering internal and external areas. The Council has provided no evidence of how it considered the suitability of the third property.
23. At the end of July 2019, Mr X contacted the Council by phone to report a blocked toilet and broken intercom. A case note said an officer emailed the accommodation provider to ask it to look into the issue and provide an update. A second case note said the provider had repaired the toilet.
24. The Council accepted the main housing duty in August 2019 and wrote to Mr X with the decision. The letter explained:
• The Council considered his current property was suitable for him and it had discharged its duty under section 193 of the Housing Act 1996 and it was not required to offer him another property
• He had a right to request a review of the Council’s decision that the current property was suitable.
• It had placed him on the housing register (the waiting list for social housing).
25. In September, Mr X emailed his caseworker about various repairs issues in his flat including problems with the heating and intercom. He said his child had been removed because the flat did not have two bedrooms. He also said he needed a flat near the hospital he was attending and near his work in central London.
26. The caseworker did not reply to Mr X’s email. The Council explained this was because the officer was on long term sick leave between August 2019 and February 2020. The Council told me Mr X phoned the service at the start of October about repairs and the temporary accommodation team contacted the managing agent.
27. In October, a different council completed a social care assessment in response to a request from Mr X. The Council told me Mr X provided it with a copy of this in June 2020. The assessors (an occupational therapist and a social worker) noted issues relating to the space available in the property (keeping too many belongings). The assessor noted:
• Mr X walked with a stick and the property was small studio flat that was crowded and cluttered
• He reported managing personal care independently. His partner supported him with cooking, and housework
• Some of his reported symptoms had psychological factors. He believed he had mental health problems including depression and anxiety
• He reported pain in his left side which he believed was due to a spinal injury
• The fire brigade had visited regarding fire risk. There would be a management plan to address Mr X’s hoarding
• The heating had been broken but was since fixed
• Therapy to address hoarding behaviour was recommended
28. The OT did not recommend a need for a different type of property and the assessment did not conclude the property was unsuitable. The OT ordered a raised toilet seat.
29. At the end of October 2019, Mr X called the Council reporting he had no heating. The case records suggest an officer sent an internal email to the temporary accommodation team. There is no further record of the heating issue being followed up. The Council told me it accepted it had not received confirmation from the managing agent that the issue had been attended to in a timely manner and would follow this up with the agent.
30. Mr X complained to us and we referred his complaint back to the Council as he had not used all stages of its complaint procedure. The Council’s response said:
• He provided medical information when he applied to the Council as homeless. The Council did not refer the information to the medical adviser because the medical adviser had already assessed his partner as being in priority need and so did not need to assess him as well.
• The Council accepted the main housing duty to house him and his partner. Any long-term accommodation would be assessed for suitability using the medical information already provided.
• The Council offered the most suitable interim accommodation available at the time. He had moved twice, first because of verbal abuse from other tenants and second because of complaints about him and his partner.
31. The Council’s case notes indicate Mr X asked for all communication to him to be by email in December 2019. The officer receiving this information noted this on the database and added Mr X’s email address.
32. In January 2020, Mr X instructed a solicitor who asked for a review of the suitability of Mr X’s accommodation. The solicitor emailed the caseworker, who was still off sick and so did not respond. The caseworker returned to work in the middle of March and progressed the review request. The caseworker said he had 9000 unread emails to deal with on his return.
33. The review request included a letter from Mr X’s specialist and a copy of an inspection report by a different council’s housing technical officer in January 2020. The report noted some repairs were needed including to the intercom. The technical officer asked the managing agent to sort these issues out.
34. The Council’s review officer decided the property was unsuitable on procedural grounds because a full suitability assessment was not completed at the appropriate time. The review officer said Mr X would be offered alternative accommodation, but the Council would carry out a full needs assessment before making him a further offer.
35. The Council told me:
• In October 2019, Mr X told the Council he needed an assessment for a wheelchair and had asked his GP to arrange this. But there was no confirmation Mr X required a wheelchair.
• It had recently referred Mr X for an assessment by an occupational therapist (OT) to determine his mobility needs, but Mr X had not co-operated with the OT.
• Mr X also said he needed a level access shower, but this would not be offered until an OT assessment had been carried out.
• The only information housing services had on file about Mr X’s child was that his partner had given birth and the child had been placed in the Council’s care.
• He was owed the main housing duty and was 13th on the waiting list for a property, but the Council still needed to assess his mobility needs because of conflicting information from other OT reports about whether he needed to use a wheelchair, to ensure future offers of accommodation are suitable for him.

Was there fault?

Failure to document consideration of the suitability of offers of interim accommodation

36. The Council’s procedures for assessing the suitability of interim accommodation it offers homeless applicants are described in paragraph 14. The procedures say officers should document their consideration of an applicant’s journey times to work and hospital and pick the most suitable vacancy from those available according to the size and composition of the household. The Council has provided me with no records to evidence it considered suitability of each of the three properties offered to Mr X as interim accommodation. This is a failure to act in line with procedures and is fault. The Council cannot evidence it considered suitability when offering Mr X interim accommodation.

Failure to monitor the emails of an officer on long-term sick leave

37. Mr X contacted the Council by email in September 2019 saying he needed a property close to his hospital and close to his work in central London. The email was a request for a review of the suitability of his property. The Council failed to deal with the email because the officer who received the email was on long-term sick leave. The Council should have had arrangements in place to monitor the officer’s emails, arrange for them to be forwarded or to advice senders to contact a different officer. The failure to have a system for monitoring an absent officer’s emails is fault.
38. The Council has since completed a review and concluded Mr X’s current property is not suitable on procedural grounds because it did not carry out an assessment of its suitability when accepting the main housing duty. Mr X is on the waiting list for another property. Had the Council dealt with Mr X’s request in September, he would have been placed on the waiting list for alternative temporary accommodation earlier. He would have been in a higher position on the waiting list. There is not enough evidence to say he would have been offered a property because the suitability of each vacancy would need to be matched to Mr X’s assessed housing needs.

Failure to follow up repairs’ issues with the managing agent

39. The Council accepts it did not take enough action to follow up whether repairs issues Mr X had raised about a faulty intercom and heating, had been looked into and resolved by the managing agent in a timely fashion. This is poor customer service and is fault.

Reasonable adjustments

40. Mr X asked for all communication to be by email. The Council made a record on its database that this should be done. I consider the Council acted in line with section 20 of the Equality Act and there is no fault.

Did the fault cause injustice?

41. Mr X has been on the waiting list for temporary accommodation longer than he would have done had the Council reviewed its decision on receipt of his request in September. I do not conclude the property is unsuitable for Mr X, because the review’s conclusion was only that the proper procedure had not been followed, namely that there had not been an assessment of suitability.
42. It does not appear from the records available that the managing agent sorted out some repairs issues in a timely manner (or that the Council took effective steps to monitor the performance of the managing agent which acted on its behalf). A technical report concluded the intercom was faulty in January 2020 and Mr X contacted the Council to report the problem in July 2019. And the heating appears to have been a problem for at least part of last year. This caused Mr X inconvenience.

Agreed action

43. To remedy the injustice, the Council will, within one month:
• Apologise to Mr X for the inconvenience caused by the delay in
1. identifying and dealing with his request for a review
2. following up repairs issues
• Make Mr X a payment of £200 to reflect his inconvenience
• Carry out a suitability assessment for Mr X’s current temporary accommodation. If the outcome is that it is not suitable, offer him suitable accommodation as soon as a suitable property becomes available.

44. The Council will, before making any further offers of long-term accommodation carry out an assessment of Mr X’s long-term housing needs in terms of property type and required adaptations. I have not set a deadline for this recommendation because it will depend on when the Council offers accommodation and also dependent on Mr X’s co-operation with an OT and on the Covid-19 situation.
45. At the time of this statement, the Council understands Mr X wants to be rehoused on his own due to him and his partner splitting up. The Council will therefore either make Mr X an offer of a property or he can bid for any vacancies if he prefers. The Council will first confirm with Mr X whether he wants a direct offer or wants to bid for properties. If Mr X does resume a relationship with his ex-partner, they still have the option of being rehoused together.
46. I do not conclude that the Council’s actions led to Mr X’s child being removed because there is no evidence to support this.

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Final decision

47. There is fault by the Council because it failed to identify and deal with a request for a review of the suitability of Mr X’s accommodation and failed to follow up repairs issues with its managing agent in a timely manner. This caused Mr X avoidable frustration. The Council will take the actions set out in paragraphs 43 to 45 to remedy Mr X’s injustice.
48. I have completed my investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman