Overview:

Key to names used

• Miss X The complainant

Summary

Miss X complained the Council failed in its duties to her after she became homeless in 2021. She says her family faced continuous instability in unsuitable accommodation for two years, which worsened her existing health conditions and meant one of her children was hospitalised due to damage caused by poor living conditions.

Finding

Fault found causing injustice and recommendations made.

Recommendations

The Council must consider the report and confirm within three months the action it has taken or proposes to take. The Council should consider the report at its full Council, Cabinet or other appropriately delegated committee of elected members and we will require evidence of this. (Local Government Act 1974, section 31(2), as amended)

To remedy the injustice caused, within one month of the date of this report we recommend the Council should:

• apologise to Miss X for the faults we have identified, and the impact of those faults. Our guidance on remedies sets out our expectations for how organisations should apologise effectively to remedy injustice. The Council should consider this in making its apology;
• properly consider whether it should increase Miss X’s priority on its housing register, including whether this should be done via manager discretion. If the Council decides it should increase Miss X’s priority, it should backdate it to the date when it first had the evidence on which this decision is based. It should provide us with detailed evidence of this consideration;
• pay Miss X a total of £14,150, comprising of:

  • £1,800 to recognise the 9 weeks Miss X and her family spent living in unsuitable interim accommodation while owed the relief duty from August to December 2021. This is calculated at £200 a week;

  • £3,250 to recognise the 14 months Miss X and her family spent living in unsuitable temporary accommodation (Accommodation Y), where Miss X repeatedly reported disrepair issues that were not resolved, from December 2021 to February 2023. This is calculated at £250 a month, minus the 4 weeks of the 8-week suitability review period that fell within the time Miss X lived there;

  • £5,600 to recognise the 28 weeks Miss X and her family spent living in unsuitable bed and breakfast (B&B) accommodation from February to August 2023. This is calculated at £200 a week;

  • £500 to recognise the avoidable distress and disruption caused to Miss X by the frequency of short term moves with inadequate notice;

  • £1,000 to recognise the avoidable harm the Council accepted was caused to Miss X’s youngest child because of damp and mould in Accommodation Y;

  • £500 to recognise the avoidable risk of harm caused to Miss X’s older child because of damp and mould in Accommodation Y;

  • £1,000 to recognise the avoidable risk of harm to Miss X, from the damp and mould in Accommodation Y, the difficulties it presented because of her mobility issues, and the impact on her mental health due to fear of domestic abuse;

  • £200 to recognise the uncertainty that remains for Miss X about how things may have been different for her had the Council properly considered her housing priority; and

  • £300 to recognise the avoidable time and trouble caused to Miss X by the Council’s failure to respond to her complaint in good time, or follow up on its promised actions.

We also recommend within three months of the date of this report the Council should:

• produce an action plan to address the faults we have identified. Progress against this plan should be reported to or overseen by the relevant portfolio lead member and scrutiny committee. The plan should include actions to consider and address the Council’s failure in this case to:

  • complete a proper assessment for a homeless applicant and produce a personalised housing plan;

  • properly notify a homeless applicant of its housing duties to them and any review rights;

  • consider whether all interim or temporary accommodation it offered to a homeless applicant was suitable for their individual circumstances, in line with the Homelessness Code of Guidance;

  • properly consider requests for a statutory review of the suitability of temporary accommodation;

  • notify a homeless applicant of the outcome of a statutory suitability review and seek suitable alternative accommodation;

  • properly consider suitability of accommodation when a homeless applicant raised concerns about proximity to a perpetrator of domestic abuse, and whether this presented a risk;

  • move a household which included a pregnant woman and dependent children out of B&B accommodation after six weeks;

  • properly consider the frequency of moves and amount of notice given, when it regularly moved a household which included a pregnant woman who was disabled, and dependent children;

  • properly consider its duty to protect the property of a homeless applicant to whom it owed a housing duty, from loss or damage;

  • properly consider the individual circumstances of an applicant to its housing register when deciding their priority, instead of fettering its discretion by applying the same approach to all homeless applicants; and

  • have due regard to its duties to a homeless applicant under the Equality Act 2010 and the Human Rights Act 1998.

• produce a summary of the faults identified in this case, and the actions it will take to prevent recurrence, and share this with all staff in the relevant departments.

The Council has accepted our recommendations.

Print this page