Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about an alleged failure by the Council to properly consider and decide his homelessness application, including during the review process. This is because the complainant has a right of appeal on a point of law to county court and it would be reasonable for him exercise this.

The complaint

1. The complainant (Mr X) complains about the Council’s handling of his homelessness application for housing. He says the Council took 10 months to carry out a review of its decision and this was based on incorrect information and failed to properly consider his health and medical needs.
2. In summary, Mr X says the alleged fault has had a significant and adverse impact of his homelessness situation. As a desired outcome, Mr X wants us to cancel the Council’s review decision and recommend disciplinary action against those involved in the handling of his homelessness application.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’, which we call ‘fault’. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse effect 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 an investigation if we decide the tests set out in our Assessment Code are not met. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended).
4. 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 un-reasonable to expect the person to go to court. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(6)(c), as amended).

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How I considered this complaint

5. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council. I also considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

6. Part 7 of the Housing Act 1996 and the Homelessness Code of Guidance for Local Authorities set out councils’ powers and duties to people who are homeless or threatened with homelessness. If a person disagrees with a council’s decision, they have a right to request a review of that decision under section 202 of the Housing Act 1996 (the Act). The review must be carried out by someone who was not involved in the original decision and who is more senior to the original decision maker. Councils must complete reviews about whether a person is ‘homeless’ within eight weeks of the date of the review request.
7. If, following the outcome of the review, the applicant remains dissatisfied and believes this is legally flawed, they have a right of appeal to county court on a point of law under section 204 of the Act. If Mr X disagrees with the Council’s review decision due to this being made on the basis of incorrect information, I consider it would be reasonable for him to appeal to county court on a point of law. This is the process Parliament intended for people in Mr X’s position to use when it enacted the Act. I note Mr X’s comment that it does not seem appropriate for him to appeal to county court until the Ombudsman has had an opportunity to “cancel’ the Council’s review decision. However, it is not the role of the Ombudsman to carry out a second review of a homelessness decision before an applicant appeals to county court. Such a process would not work because a person only has 21 days from the outcome of the review in which to appeal to county court. While any appeal Mr X now made would be late, he could still ask the court to accept a late appeal if there are good reasons for this.
8. I have not been provided with a copy of the Council’s review decision and so have no evidence it took 10 months to provide Mr X the outcome of the review. If correct, this far exceeds the permitted 8 weeks and so would be fault. However, I cannot say any fault caused Mr X an injustice because we do not know whether he is actually homeless and therefore lost out on the opportunity to be given housing, that would be for the court to decide. Where we cannot deal with the substantive issue (see the above paragraph), our guidance says it is normally not a good use of public resources to investigate complaints about complaint processes. There is also no evidence Mr X has been caused a significant enough injustice to warrant investigation. I am therefore exercising my general discretion to not investigate the particular matter of an alleged delay.

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Final decision

9. We will not investigate this complaint. This is because the restrictions I outline at paragraphs three and four (above) apply.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman