Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about Ms X’s homelessness and housing applications. It would be reasonable for Ms X to go to court about the Council allegedly damaging her health and on some homelessness decisions. Some parts of the complaint are late. We cannot reasonably achieve what Ms X wants.

The complaint

1. Ms X complains the Council did not deal properly with her homelessness and housing register applications, including not taking proper account of her mental health conditions. Ms X’s solicitor says this damaged Ms X’s mental and physical health and resulted in some unsuitable offers of 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 cannot investigate late complaints unless we decide there are good reasons. Late complaints are when someone takes more than 12 months to complain to us about something a council has done. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26B and 34D, as amended)
4. The Ombudsman investigates complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’, which we call ‘fault’. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint, which we call ‘injustice’. We provide a free service but must use public money carefully. We do not start or may decide not to continue with an investigation if we decide we cannot achieve the outcome someone wants or it would be reasonable for the person to ask for an organisation review or appeal. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6))

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How I considered this complaint

5. I considered information provided by the complainant and copy complaint correspondence from the Council.
6. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

7. The central point of Ms X’s complaint to us is the argument the Council’s actions irreversibly damaged her physical and mental health, for which she wants compensation. That is really a claim of personal injury. The courts can consider it, so the restriction in paragraph 2 applies to this point. There might be some cost to court action but that in itself does not automatically mean the Ombudsman should investigate instead. Liability and compensation for personal injury are not straightforward legally. That is especially so in cases like this, where Ms X already had health problems before the events complained of and there is an argument about whether or how far the Council’s actions might have worsened her health. It is more appropriate for the courts than the Ombudsman to consider such matters. So it would be reasonable for Ms X to go to court for a decision on this point.
8. Ms X’s complaint to the Council alleged breaches of the Equality Act 2010. Again, only the courts can rule definitively on that.
9. Ms X also had a right to go to court on some events related to her homelessness application. That included the suitability of housing the Council offered to end its homelessness relief duty and any disagreement with the Council’s decision Ms X was not in priority need as legally defined. Ms X had the right to ask the Council to review those decisions and, if she was dissatisfied with a review decision, she would have had the right to appeal to the county court on a point of law.
10. The law expressly provides this route for such disputes and the court could overturn the Council’s decision (which the Ombudsman could not) if it saw fit. I appreciate Ms X had health problems, including with her mental health. However, I also note Ms X had legal advice, so would not have been trying to negotiate the review and appeal route alone. In the circumstances, it would have been reasonable to expect Ms X to use her court appeal rights as necessary. If any of those decisions was changed in Ms X’s favour at the review stage, the court appeal right would not have applied, but nor would investigation by the Ombudsman add anything.
11. The events complained of happened between December 2020 and June 2022. Ms X’s solicitor complained to us in January 2023. So the restriction in paragraph 3 applies to events up to January 2022. The Council delayed its first complaint response by several months, which could account for some delay complaining to us. I also note Ms X was dealing with homelessness and had health problems. However, it is also relevant that Ms X sought some help and had access to legal advice for much of this period. Taking a little over 12 months to come to us might be understandable. However, some events happened between 18 months and two years before the complaint to us. Complaints about those events could reasonably have come to us much sooner. So, even if the points in paragraphs 7 to 10 above did not apply, I would not be minded to investigate some earlier events, such as the handling of the housing application in December 2020 and early 2021 and the interim accommodation provided from May to July 2021.
12. Ms X’s solicitor told us she wanted the complaint to us to achieve:
1. “…Compensation for the irreversible damage to her mental and physical health…” This is more suitable for the courts, as I have explained above.
2. “…an explanation of how such discriminatory behaviour was allowed to continue.” Even if the points above did not apply, and if we were to find fault by the Council, it seems unlikely we could get an explanation of precisely why any such faults happened, as that would necessarily be speculative. It seems disproportionate to try to achieve this.
3. “[Ms X] would like details of the mental health training that officers have undertaken in relation to homeless applicants.” It is not the Ombudsman’s role to carry out research for other people on staff training. The Council has already given some information about such training, which it states it received from an organisation Ms X is in contact with. Getting further details of such training is unlikely in itself to resolve matters significantly for Ms X, as she is evidently dissatisfied with the Council’s actions, irrespective of what training its staff might have had. It would be disproportionate to pursue this.

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Final decision

13. We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint because: it would be reasonable for Ms X to go to court on the central point about the Council allegedly damaging her health and on homelessness decisions where she had a court appeal right; some parts of the complaint are late; and we cannot reasonably achieve what Ms X wants.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman