Summary: Ms X complained about how the Council administered her application for a grant to make her home more energy efficient. Ms X complained the Council delayed and gave her conflicting information. There was no fault in the Council’s actions.

The complaint

1. Ms X complained about how the Council administered her application for a grant to make her home more energy efficient. Ms X complained the Council delayed and gave her conflicting information. Ms X said this caused her distress, inconvenience and had an impact on her health.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word fault to refer to these. We consider whether there was fault in the way an organisation made its decision. If there was no fault in the decision making, we cannot question the outcome. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended)
3. When considering complaints, if there is a conflict of evidence, we make findings based on the balance of probabilities. This means that we will weigh up the available relevant evidence and base our findings on what we think was more likely to have happened.
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 read the documents Ms X sent, and I discussed the complaint with her on the telephone.
6. I considered the documents the Council provided in response to my enquiry.
7. Ms X and the Council had an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I considered any comments received before making a final decision.

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What I found

Relevant guidance

Energy performance certificates

8. Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs) identify how energy efficient a building is and give it a rating from A (very efficient) to G (inefficient). EPCs can show how costly it will be to heat and light a property, and what its carbon dioxide emissions are likely to be.

Sustainable warmth competition

9. The Government’s sustainable warmth competition was overseen by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and ran between January 2022 and March 2023. It offered a grant intended to support low-income households to increase the energy efficiency of homes and thereby reduce the cost of energy bills.
10. Councils applied for the funding and decided how they would identify potentially eligible households. The competition specified funding should be targeted at the least energy efficient properties (EPC rating E, F and G). It said the grant should improve a property’s EPC rating to C or above. It specified the Council should use a ‘fabric first approach’ of insulation and heat loss prevention measures to the fabric of the building, before using other energy efficiency measures such as solar power installation.

Council’s leaflet

11. The Council’s leaflet titled ‘Retrofit Scheme’ said people could apply for free insulation under its retrofit home insulation scheme. It said people could visit its website to find out if they were eligible. If they were eligible it would do a survey on their property. An assessor would then recommend improvements based on the grant available and plan the work.

What happened

12. Ms X owns her home through a shared ownership agreement with a housing association. It has a single storey, single brick extension to the rear which Ms X describes as cold and damp.
13. Ms X applied to the Council at the beginning of February 2022 under the retrofit home insultation scheme. The Council told Ms X it would begin conducting some eligibility checks and may contact her about it.
14. Ms X told the Council she had shared ownership of her property in March 2022. The Council said it needed to confirm with BEIS if the application could continue on a shared ownership property. The Council said demand for the grant was high.
15. The Council updated Ms X in April, and in May 2022 it confirmed the application could continue. It said there would be a delay in it completing a survey but it would prioritise her property to compensate for the delay in her application. It updated Ms X again in June 2022 in response to her email and said there was a high number of properties waiting for a survey.
16. An assessor visited Ms X’s property in August 2022. They assessed the kitchen extension could be insulated and one single glazed window could be replaced. Ms X said the assessor told her the work would start in two weeks.
17. The Council considered Ms X’s application, the assessor’s recommendations, and the criteria of the scheme. It told Ms X her property did not fit the criteria for the scheme as the insulation would apply to less than 50% of her property.
18. Ms X expressed her displeasure at the Council’s response and asked for the work to be completed. The Council provided a further explanation about how it considered her application. It said under the rules of the scheme it could not complete external insulation for less than 50% of the property. It said window replacement must raise the EPC of the whole building which a single window would not achieve.
19. Ms X complained to the Council in September. She said:
• it had delayed in telling her the property was not eligible for the scheme;
• it had delayed in responding to emails she had sent it;
• when the surveyor had assessed the property they had told her the work to upgrade her property would start in two weeks and that had misled her; and
• the Council should either offer compensation for the poor service or complete the work on her property.
20. The Council responded to Ms X the same day. It said:
• it had to confirm with BEIS that a shared ownership property was eligible which caused a delay;
• it had to assess the property before it could make a decision and so it could not have made the decision earlier;
• the delay in responding to two of Ms X’s emails was due to staff illness, and apologised;
• the assessor had to tell Ms X what work they were recommending, and should not have said the work would automatically be approved; and
• it had already talked to the assessor about that matter.
21. Dissatisfied with the Council’s response Ms X repeated her complaint.
22. The Council responded and said the rules for the grant were set out by BEIS. It said the assessment of Ms X’s property showed the work would not sufficiently raise the EPC rating of the property and therefore Ms X’s property did not qualify for the grant.
23. Ms X told the Council she was not satisfied with the system administering the grant and that she had been misled.
24. The Council responded to Ms X and confirmed its previous explanations and complaint responses.

My findings

25. We are not an appeal body. We cannot question the Council’s decision because someone disagrees with it. We can only decide if there was fault in the way the decision was reached.
26. The Council followed the guidance in assessing Ms X’s eligibility, assessing her property and considering the eligibility criteria for the grant funding. It sought advice from the government department administering the scheme where it needed to, which was an appropriate action. There was no fault in the way the Council made its decision, therefore I cannot question its outcome.
27. The Council’s initial communication to Ms X about its decision did not explain what it had considered or why her property did not meet the criteria. However, in its subsequent correspondence with Ms X it provided clear and detailed explanations about the administration of the scheme and why Ms X’s property did not qualify. There was no fault in the Council’s actions.
28. Ms X applied for the scheme in February 2022. The Council told her there was a high number of applicants and there would be a delay. The Council told Ms X it needed advice from BEIS in March and kept her updated while it obtained it. Once it had received the advice the Council arranged for the survey to be completed within three months and told Ms X of its decision a week after it in September 2022. The delays were not excessive or avoidable and so there was no fault in the Council’s actions.
29. Ms X said the assessor told her the work would be completed and this was misleading. I was not there and cannot make a finding on exactly what the assessor told Ms X. In any case, the Council told Ms X her property was not eligible within a week and so any confusion did not cause her a significant personal injustice.

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Final decision

30. I have completed my investigation. There was no fault in the Council’s actions.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman