Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the support Ms X received when she was homeless due to fleeing domestic abuse. This is because the complaint in part, carried a county court appeal right which it was reasonable for Ms X to use and in part, we cannot achieve a more worthwhile outcome.

The complaint

1. Ms X complains the Council failed to support her when she was pregnant and homeless due to fleeing domestic abuse. Ms X said she has been caused significant distress by the Council’s actions and wants the Council to provide her with suitable accommodation as a matter of urgency.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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 there is no worthwhile outcome achievable by our investigation. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))
3. 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 unreasonable to expect the person to go to court. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(6)(c), as amended)
4. If we are satisfied with an organisation’s actions or proposed actions, we can complete our investigation and issue a decision statement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 30(1B) and 34H(i), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

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

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My assessment

7. Ms X complains the Council failed to provide her with suitable accommodation when she fled domestic abuse. Ms X was pregnant at the time and was living with relatives. Ms X said she preferred to live there until she found her own property or was made an offer by the Council.
8. Several months after Ms X first applied as homeless, she said her relatives’ home was not appropriate for her to live in and the Council offered Ms X temporary accommodation in a neighbouring borough.
9. Ms X asked the Council to carry out a statutory review of the suitability of this accommodation as she said it was too far away. The Council carried out the review, decided it was suitable and told Ms X of her county court appeal rights if she disagreed. It was reasonable for Ms X to have used her appeal rights to resolve this issue, so we will not investigate the suitability of this accommodation further.
10. Regarding the support Ms X received before this offer was made, the Council accepted through its complaints process that its communication with Ms X had been poor and it delayed progressing her homelessness application.
11. The Council took more than seven months to decide whether it owed Ms X the main housing duty, when it should have taken 56 days. If not for this fault, the Council most likely would have accepted a main housing duty several months earlier and Ms X would have been offered temporary accommodation sooner.
12. It does not mean however that she would have been offered accommodation within the borough any sooner. We therefore cannot achieve any more meaningful outcome by investigating this further because as explained above, whether the location of the temporary accommodation was suitable is a matter that carried a county court appeal right which Ms X could have used.
13. The Council apologised for its delay, progressed her case, put forward the case to a manager to consider additional staff training and offered Ms X £75 as a financial remedy. This is appropriate action to take and we would be unlikely to achieve any more meaningful outcome if we were to investigate the complaint further.

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Final decision

14. We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint because the complaint in part carries a court appeal right and we cannot achieve any more worthwhile outcome.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman