Summary: Mr X complains the Council has not dealt with his housing properly. The Council has already upheld Mr X’s complaint and offered a remedy. Mr X suffered more injustice as a result of his medical circumstances and was left out of pocket for meals. The Council has agreed to pay Mr X £300 per month for the time spent in inappropriate hotel accommodation and backdate an uprated day allowance to 14 April 2022.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I shall refer to as Mr X, complains the Council has not dealt properly with his housing because it has offered an insufficient remedy for the fault it has agreed to, as;
• £150 per month does not reflect the injustice he suffered due to his medical circumstances;
• £15 per day allowance has only been allowed from 26 December 2022 and not 14 April 2022 which was when he first raised the issue with the Council.
2. Mr X says he has suffered greater distress than has been recognised and he has been left out of pocket.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. 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)
4. 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)
5. When considering complaints, if there is a conflict of evidence, we make findings based on the balance of probabilities. This means that we will weigh up the available relevant evidence and base our findings on what we think was more likely to have happened.
6. 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 34H(i), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

7. I spoke to Mr X about his complaint and considered documents he provided. I made enquiries of the Council and considered its response and the supporting documents it provided.
8. 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

What happened?

9. This is a brief chronology of key events. It does not contain everything I reviewed during my investigation.
10. The Council has upheld Mr X’s complaint that he was placed in inappropriate hotel accommodation and that he incurred costs for meals and laundry.

Analysis

11. The Council has offered Mr X £150 per month as remedy for being placed in inappropriate hotel accommodation. This amount is based on a previous complaint to the Ombudsman by Mr X. It has also offered to pay Mr X a support payment of £15 per day from 26 December 2022. The Council says it has paid Mr X a total of £4080 in respect of this already.
12. The Ombudsman was not able to consider Mr X’s full circumstances as part of the historic complaint. I have therefore considered documents provided by Mr X regarding his medical circumstances, which were not available to the earlier investigation.
13. Mr X suffers from post traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, depression, lower limb function, muscle weakness and social isolation. He has been awarded the enhanced rate of Personal Independence Payment. Mr X:
• Needs supervision or assistance from another person to prepare or cook a simple meal;
• Needs help monitoring a health condition;
• Needs supervision or prompting from another person to wash or bathe;
• Needs another person to tell him to get dressed or undressed;
• Needs to be prompted by another person to engage with other people;
• Needs assistance from another person to make complex budgeting decisions;
• Cannot undertake any journey because it would cause you overwhelming psychological distress; and
• Cannot move more than 20 metres.
14. Having considered this evidence, I do not consider the remedy offered to be appropriate. Although I understand the Council’s approach to offering a remedy, in view of Mr X’s circumstances, I consider his vulnerability means he has suffered greater distress than recognised.
15. The Council says it responded to a complaint by Mr X in April 2022, as a result of which it added meals to his hotel booking. It then says it received a complaint from Mr X in December 2022 saying that he was unable to eat all the food options at the hotel and was spending a lot of money on laundry.
16. Mr X has provided a screen shot of an email dated April 2022 in which he said he was unable to eat food at the hotel because it was not halal. The Council says it cannot find any record of receiving the email. It is unclear who the email was addressed to.
17. Mr X says the email was definitely received as the officer it was addressed to spoke to him by telephone about it afterwards. I asked the Council for any telephone records, but it did not provide any information to me about this.
18. I have seen photographs from Mr X of food packaging. These show that Mr X purchased food from McDonalds, Greggs, Burger King, and Pepes. One of the pictures shows a receipt which indicates the food was delivered, and another is dated April 2022.
19. On the balance of probabilities, Mr X did raise issues about problems with being able to eat food being provided by the Council in April 2022.
20. The Council accepted that Mr X spent money on laundry at the hotel from December 2022. He would have had to incur this cost from April as well.
21. The Council has accepted it should pay a day rate of £21.74 in relation to an earlier separate Ombudsman investigation.
22. I do not consider the remedy offered to be appropriate. Mr X suffered greater injustice than the Council’s proposed remedy recognises.
23. Mr X also asked me to consider potential injustice caused as a result of a family member, his only carer, making multiple journeys across the country to support him. Mr X did not provide any further supporting information to me about this. The Council says, “When Mr X was accommodated in [the hotel], this was at his own request to be located near family/support, therefore his family living in London would not be required to make multiple journeys across the country to support him. At the point Mr X advised us that his brother who was supporting him moved back to London, we moved him out of [the hotel] and to a closer property to his brother who could continue supporting him.” On the balance of probabilities, I consider that Mr X’s family member would not have needed to make long journeys to support him. Mr X and his family member did not suffer any injustice as a result.

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Agreed action

24. To remedy the outstanding injustice caused by the fault I have identified, the Council has agreed to take the following action within 4 weeks of this decision:
• Pay Mr X £300 per month for the time spent in inappropriate hotel accommodation (a total of £6,300); and
• Pay Mr X a day rate of £21.74 per day support payment from 14 April 2022 until 22 March 2023, covering 342 days (a total of £7,435.08).
• These amounts are a total sum and any payments already made in respect of these issues should be deducted from them.
25. The Council should provide us with evidence it has complied with the above actions.

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Final decision

26. I have found fault by the Council, which caused injustice to Mr X. I have now completed my investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman