Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s assessment of a homelessness application. Delay in issuing a homelessness Relief duty letter for four weeks did not cause any significant injustice to Mr X.

The complaint

1. Mr X complained about the Council’s failure to post a Relief duty decision letter to him in 2025. He says this caused confusion and concern about his homelessness case outcome and delayed his ability to submit a review request under s.202 of the housing Act 1996.

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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 we decide:

• there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating, or
• any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement, or
• 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

3. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. Mr X says he applied as homeless to the Council following his eviction from previous temporary accommodation. The Council told him it has sent a s.184 Relief duty letter on 6 June 2025 but following his enquiry it found this was not issued and did not send it until 10 July. The Council’s decision was that he was accepted as homeless under the Relief duty but that he was not entitled to accommodation because he was considered to be non-priority homeless.
6. Mr X says the 1-month delay denied him the opportunity to submit a review of the Council’s decision while he was homeless. The Council had provided interim accommodation for Mr X on 22 May when he was evicted so there was no injustice arising from delay in receiving the decision. There is no s.202 review available for the issuing of an acceptance of Relief duty decision, this only applies to decisions which end the duty.
7. Mr X did challenge the non-priority decision and this did involve the 4 weeks delay. However, a separate complaint by Mr X to us confirmed that the Council did not uphold his review in a decision issued in December 2025. This decision gave Mr X an opportunity to further challenge the decision to end the duty and his accommodation by appealing under s.204 of the homelessness legislation.
8. Our role is to consider complaints where the person bringing the complaint has suffered significant personal injustice as a direct result of the actions or inactions of the organisation. This means we will normally only investigate a complaint where the complainant has suffered serious loss, harm, or distress as a direct result of faults or failures. We will not normally investigate a complaint where the alleged loss or injustice is not a serious or significant matter.

In this case Mr X had already been provided with accommodation before the relief duty letter was due to be issued. Its delay by 4 weeks did not affect his situation and he remained in the accommodation even though the decision was that he was non-priority without an accommodation duty. There is insufficient evidence of any significant injustice arising which would warrant further investigation.

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Final decision

9. We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s assessment of a homelessness application. Delay in issuing a homelessness Relief duty letter for four weeks did not cause any significant injustice to Mr X.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman