Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about matters related to Mr X’s housing dating back many years. This is mainly because any investigation would be unlikely to reach a clear enough view now.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains the Council: disregarded his housing situation for nearly 20 years; closed a previous housing application; and indirectly discriminated against him.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate. 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)
3. We investigate 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 continue an investigation if we decide further investigation would not lead to a different outcome. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

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How I considered this complaint

4. I considered information provided by the complainant.
5. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

Complaint: Council disregarded Mr X’s housing circumstances for 20 years

6. Mr X says the Council has disregarded his lack of stable housing for 20 years. The only significant point that is ongoing is the length of waiting time priority the Council has given Mr X’s current housing register application. I shall deal with that point separately below (see paragraphs 9 to 12 below). The rest of this point is about the Council’s handling of Mr X’s housing situation over many years. During that time, Mr X has sometimes had a housing register application and sometimes not and has sometimes been in contact with the Council and sometimes not.
7. Mr X would reasonably have known many years ago of his dissatisfaction with the Council about his housing. So the restriction in paragraph 2 applies to this part of the complaint. Mr X told me he did not complain sooner because his mental health problems made it difficult to pursue matters. He provided some medical evidence. I sympathise and I appreciate Mr X’s mental health problems might explain taking somewhat longer than 12 months to complain to us. However, as this part of the complaint is about matters dating back up to 20 years, I consider Mr X could reasonably have complained to us sooner.
8. Even if the points in paragraph 7 did not apply, we could not reasonably expect any investigation now to reach a clear enough view, on balance, about whether there was fault in the Council’s actions so many years ago, or what Mr X’s housing situation might have been without any such alleged fault. It would be disproportionate to try to investigate these matters now.

Closing previous housing application and not backdating current one

9. Mr X has had several applications. The central point here is an application from 2004 that the Council closed in 2012. The Council included Mr X on another application around 2014/15, although Mr X argues that should not have happened because another person exploited him.
10. Mr X’s current housing application dates from 2017. It only has the waiting time priority Mr X has accrued on the housing register since then, not the waiting time priority he says he would have accrued, dating back to 2004, had the Council not closed a previous application in 2012.
11. Mr X has known this since 2017, so the restriction in paragraph 2 applies to this point. Mr X contacted the Council about this in 2020, 2021 and 2022, then complained to us in 2023. His actions were about a year apart each time. Mr X told me he did not complain to us about this sooner because of his mental health problems. I understand those difficulties might have affected how long it took him to complain to us in recent years. So the restriction in paragraph 2 is not a reason to refuse to investigate this part of the complaint.
12. However, our general discretion to decide against investigating, as set out in paragraph 3, is relevant. We are not an appeal body. It is not our role to decide how much priority a housing applicant should have. If we investigated, we could only consider whether the Council properly reached its decisions in accordance with the law, its policies and procedures and its understanding of the facts at the time, not with hindsight. Mr X asks us to decide whether the Council is at fault for not backdating his waiting time priority to 2004. To decide that, we would need to decide whether there was fault in the Council closing the application in 2012 and in its treatment of various attempted and at least two actual housing applications after 2012. Mr X and the Council dispute what happened and what should have happened. We would also need to understand the Council’s policies, which will have changed over the years. It is unlikely we could reach a clear enough view, on balance, about those matters after so many years.

Alleged discrimination

13. Mr X says the Council discriminated indirectly by having an attitude that he was a young man so could resolve his housing difficulties and that he could move out of London. We cannot speculate about what might have motivated the Council’s actions over many years. Mr X refers specifically to one telephone conversation where he says a Council officer mentioned moving from London. We could not expect to reach a clear enough view about what was said, or meant, in such a conversation. Anyway, the Council has put Mr X on its housing register. That suggests it believes Mr X is entitled to consideration for social housing in London. Therefore the alleged remark, even if unwelcome, did not disadvantage Mr X in practical terms. We cannot expect to achieve more on this.

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Final decision

14. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint. The complaint about events dating back 20 years is late without good enough reason to investigate it now and investigation would be unlikely to reach a clear enough view. Nor would be likely to reach a clear enough view now about events related to the Council not backdating Mr X’s waiting time priority. The alleged discriminatory comment did not disadvantage Mr X significantly enough in practical terms to warrant investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman