Salford City Council (22 016 639)
Category : Housing > Homelessness
Decision : Closed after initial enquiries
Decision date : 24 Mar 2023
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: A woman complained about the Council’s failure to help her with housing despite her continuing homelessness. But we will not investigate the complaint because there is insufficient sign of fault in the way the Council has dealt with the woman’s housing case.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
- We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’, which we call ‘fault’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We do not start an investigation if, for example, we decide there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating . (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6))
How I considered this complaint
- I considered the information Miss Y provided about her complaint. I also considered information from the Council about Miss Y’s housing case. In addition, I took account of the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
- Last year the Council ended its housing duty to Miss Y under the homelessness legislation when she did not take up an offer of social housing.
- Miss Y said she had remained homeless since then and had made further online homelessness applications to the Council, but it had not responded. In addition Miss Y continued to make bids for social housing properties advertised on Home Search, but without success.
- But the Council has provided a copy of an email it sent Miss Y in January 2023 in response to an online homelessness enquiry she made the previous day. The email invited Miss Y to attend the Council’s office for an assessment. However the Council said Miss Y did not respond to the email.
- In response to my enquiries the Council reiterated that Miss Y was still free to call at its office and it would then determine if there had been a material change in her circumstances to warrant opening a new homelessness case. In that event the Council said it would also assess if it had a duty to provide Miss Y with interim accommodation. But failing that the Council said it would still offer her accommodation under its ‘A Bed Every Night’ scheme for homeless people.
- Where a local authority has ended its homelessness duty in someone’s case, the person can make a fresh application if they are still homeless. The authority then has to decide if there are any new facts which make the new application different to the earlier one. If there are no new facts, or only trivial differences, the authority does not have to proceed with the application and it can rely on its previous decision.
- In the circumstances I am not convinced that we would have grounds to fault the Council for the way it has responded so far to Miss Y’s continuing homelessness.
- The Council also supplied details of Miss Y’s bids for social housing in recent months. But it is evident from the information provided that the successful bidder in each case had a higher priority than Miss Y under the Council’s Allocation Scheme.
- Normally we would not find fault with an authority for failing to offer social housing to a person in housing need if it has allocated its available properties in line with its published allocations policy. I see no evidence to suggest the Council has not followed its Allocation Scheme in the way it has dealt with Miss Y’s social housing bids.
Final decision
- Miss Y complained about the Council’s failure to help her with accommodation despite her continuing homelessness. However we will not investigate this matter. This is because there is not enough sign of fault in the way the Council has responded to Miss Y’s homelessness and bids for social housing to warrant our further involvement.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman