Summary: We will not investigate Miss X’s complaint about the Council’s decision to close her homeless application in 2022. This part of her complaint is late. Miss X also complains the Council is considering her second application as a new application. We will not investigate this part of the complaint as there is not enough evidence of fault in the Council’s actions.

The complaint

1. Miss X complains that the Council closed her homelessness application in 2022 without issuing a formal decision notice.
2. She also says the Council treated her second homelessness application in 2024 as a new application without any reference to her first application.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. 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)
4. 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’.
5. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We do not start or continue an investigation if we decide there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B)).

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How I considered this complaint

6. I considered information provided by Miss X and the Council.
7. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

8. Miss X made a homelessness application in 2021, which the Council rejected and closed in early 2022. The Council issued a Notice that its Duty to Prevent had come to an end.
9. We cannot investigate this part of Miss X’s complaint because it is late. I have seen no reason why she could have come to us sooner.
10. Miss X also said the Council treated her second homelessness application as a new case and without any reference to her first application. However, I have not found enough evidence of fault to question the merits of the Council decision to treat her second homelessness application as a new application.
11. This is because the Council had already issued its decision notice for Miss X’s first homelessness application and closed that case. Therefore, the second application would be treated as a new application.

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Final decision

12. We will not investigate Miss X’s complaint about her first homeless application as it is made too late. And there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating Miss X’s complaint that the Council is treating her second application as new.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman