Summary: The Ombudsman will not investigate Mrs B’s complaint that the Council has failed to acknowledge it made an error in not adding her to a tenancy agreement and it delayed sending her a copy of its decision on her homelessness application. This is because we cannot investigate complaints about the Council’s management of its social housing and we would not have enough justification to recommend the remedy Mrs B is seeking.

The complaint

1. The complainant, Mrs B, complained that the Council has failed to acknowledge it made an error in not adding her to a tenancy agreement and it delayed sending her a copy of its decision on her homelessness application.
2. Mrs B is living in temporary accommodation and is seeking a move to suitable social housing.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
4. We cannot investigate complaints about the provision or management of social housing by a council acting as a registered social housing provider. (Local Government Act 1974, paragraph 5A schedule 5, as amended)
5. 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’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We may decide not to start or continue with an investigation if we believe:

• it is unlikely we would find fault, or
• the fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained, or
• the injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement, or
• it is unlikely further investigation will lead to a different outcome, or
• we cannot achieve the outcome someone wants, or
• there is another body better placed to consider this complaint. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

6. I have considered the information Mrs B provided, her comments on my draft decision and the Council’s responses to her complaints.

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What I found

7. The main part of Mrs B’s complaint is that the Council made an error in not adding her to the tenancy agreement when she lived in one of its properties. She complained this led to her becoming homeless and in temporary accommodation.
8. This part of Mrs B’s complaint is about the Council’s actions in managing its social housing. We cannot investigate such complaints.
9. According to the Council’s records, it accepted a full housing duty to Mrs B in October 2018. It made her housing register application live so she could bid for available social housing. Mrs B told us she was not aware this had happened until April 2019. We would not now be able to investigate effectively why she did not receive important letters from the Council.
10. In April 2019 Mrs B’s advisor asked the Council for a copy of its October 2018 decision because Mrs B had not received it. The Council did not provide a copy for over six weeks. But, if we investigated this part of Mrs B’s complaint and found the Council to be at fault, that would not give us enough justification to recommend the remedy Mrs B is seeking for the injustice she has suffered. That is because Mrs B says her injustice resulted from the Council’s decision on the tenancy agreement issue. That part of her complaint does not fall within our jurisdiction.

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Final decision

11. The Ombudsman will not investigate this complaint. This is because we cannot investigate complaints about the Council’s management of its social housing and we would not have enough justification to recommend the remedy Mrs B is seeking.

Investigator’s decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman