Summary: Mrs Y complained about the way the Council decided she was not entitled to an extra bedroom. Mrs Y says sharing a bedroom will have a negative impact on her health. The Council was at fault for not assessing Mrs Y’s care needs after being asked to. It was also at fault as its Housing and Adult Social Care teams both told her the other was responsible for assessing her needs. To remedy the injustice caused the Council agreed to apologise to Mrs Y and carry out an assessment of her care needs. Following this, the Council agreed to make a new decision on whether Mrs Y was entitled to an extra bedroom.

The complaint

1. Ms X complains on behalf of Mrs Y about the Council’s decision not to allow the family to have an extra bedroom on their housing application.
2. Ms X says Mrs Y and her husband cannot sleep in the same room and moving them to a property where they would have to share a bedroom would severely damage their health.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word fault to refer to these. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint. I refer to this as ‘injustice’. If there has been fault which has caused significant injustice, or that could cause injustice to others in the future we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)
4. We consider whether there was fault in the way an organisation made its decision. If there was no fault in how the organisation made its decision, we cannot question the outcome. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended)
5. 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

6. As part of this investigation I considered the information from Ms X and the Council. I discussed the complaint with Ms X on the telephone. I sent a draft of this decision to Ms X and the Council for comments.

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What I found

Adult social care assessment

7. Sections 9 and 10 of the Care Act 2014 require councils to carry out an assessment for any adult with an appearance of need for care and support. They must provide an assessment to everyone regardless of their finances or whether the council thinks the person has eligible needs. The assessment must be of the adult’s needs and how they impact on their wellbeing and the results they want to achieve. It must also involve the individual and where suitable their carer or any other person they might want involved.
8. Councils must carry out assessments over a suitable and reasonable timescale considering the urgency of needs and any variation in those needs. Councils should tell people when their assessment will take place and keep them informed throughout the assessment.
9. Where somebody provides or intends to provide care for another adult and it appears the carer may have any needs for support, the council must carry out a carer’s assessment. A carer’s assessment must seek to find out not only the carer’s needs for support, but also the sustainability of the caring role itself. This includes the practical and emotional support the carer provides to the adult.
10. As part of the carer’s assessment, the council must consider the carer’s potential future needs for support. It must also consider whether the carer is, and will continue to be, able and willing to care for the adult needing care. (Care and Support Statutory Guidance 2014)

Housing allocations

11. Every local housing authority must publish an allocations scheme that sets out how it prioritises applicants, and its procedures for allocating housing. All allocations must be made in strict accordance with the published scheme. (Housing Act 1996, section 166A(1) & (14))
12. An allocations scheme must give reasonable preference to applicants in the following categories:
• homeless people;
• people in insanitary, overcrowded or unsatisfactory housing;
• people who need to move on medical or welfare grounds;
• people who need to move to avoid hardship to themselves or others; (Housing Act 1996, section 166A(3))
13. Housing applicants can ask the council to review a wide range of decisions about their applications, including decisions about their housing priority.
14. The Council’s allocation policy allows applicants to have an additional bedroom where a person is sharing with a family member whose care needs or behavioural problems severely affect the applicants’ ability to sleep, which in turn negatively impacts on their employment or mental health. In this situation the Council’s policy says it may require the applicant to obtain supporting evidence from the Council’s Adult Social Care department.

What happened

15. Mrs Y lives in a three bedroom property with her husband and two adult children, one of which is Ms X. This accommodation is temporary accommodation.
16. Mrs Y is on the Council’s housing register for permanent accommodation. She is listed as needing a property with two bedrooms.
17. In Autumn 2023, Ms X asked the Council, on Mrs Y’s behalf, to increase her bedroom entitlement to three bedrooms as Mrs Y and her husband were not able to share a bedroom. Ms X sent the Council a letter from Mrs Y’s GP which said Mrs Y and her husband required separate bedrooms.
18. At the end of October 2023, the Council issued Mrs Y with a decision which said she was not eligible for an extra bedroom. The Council said the evidence Mrs Y provided did not show that the situation was having a significant detrimental impact on her or her husband’s sleep and mental health. The Council also said neither Mrs Y nor her husband had provided the Council with an Adult Social Care report which stated they had night time care needs.
19. In early November 2023, Ms X contacted the Council’s Adult Social Care team and asked it to carry out an assessment of Mrs Y’s needs. Ms X said in her email Mrs Y had substantial night time care needs. Ms X also explained the difficulties of Mrs Y and her husband sharing a bedroom.
20. The Council’s Adult Social Care team responded to Ms X and said it did not provide such reports and the Council’s housing team has medical advisors who should assess whether someone needs an additional bedroom.
21. Ms X contacted the Council’s Housing team and told it the Adult Social Care team would not provide her with an assessment. Ms X asked the Council’s Housing team how she could get the evidence the Council said she needed. The Council responded to Ms X and told her it was Mrs Y’s responsibility to provide supporting evidence to show she needed an extra bedroom.
22. On 9 November 2023, Ms X asked the Council to review its decision not to allow Mrs Y an extra bedroom. Ms X also made a formal complaint to the Council. About its decision not to allow Mrs Y an extra bedroom. Ms X said she had GP evidence which said Mrs Y and her husband should have separate bedrooms. Mrs X also said the Housing team told her to get an Adult Social Care report but the Council’s Adult Social Care team said it would not provide such a report.
23. The Council responded to Ms X’s complaint on 21 November 2023. The Council said:
• Its allocations scheme says adults of the same sex, such as Mrs Y’s adult children, can share a bedroom so Mrs Y has a two bedroom need.
• In October 2023 it carried out a medical assessment and decided Mrs Y needed some specific requirements in a property such as floor level, walk in shower, no blow air heating.
• The medical evidence decided Mrs Y and her husband did not need separate bedrooms. The Council said there was no evidence that the living situation was having a significant detrimental effect on Mrs Y and her husband’s sleeping and mental health.
• The medical officer considered the GP letter provided and a medical summary from September 2023.
24. In December 2023, the Council provided Ms X with its review decision. The review decision upheld the Council’s original decision not to award an extra bedroom. The Council said its allocations policy said the effect of sharing a bedroom would need to have a severe adverse impact on Mrs Y or her husband’s sleep for them to qualify for an extra bedroom. The Council said the GP letter did mention Mrs Y’s husband suffering from depression and this is being affected by sharing a bedroom, however there was no evidence this disturbance was severe. The Council said it considered there was no mention in the medical evidence that Mrs Y or her husband’s health was severely impacted by the situation.

Analysis

25. After Ms X asked the Council to consider an extra bedroom for Mrs Y’s housing application, the Council issued a decision in late October 2023 saying Mrs Y did not meet the requirements to have an extra bedroom. I do not consider the Council was at fault for how it came to this decision on the basis of the information it had.
26. The Council explained in its decision that it had considered the GP letter Ms X provided and why it did not believe Mrs Y’s circumstances met the requirements to have an extra bedroom. This was a decision the Council was entitled to make based on the information it had.
27. Following this decision, Ms X asked the Council’s Adult Social Care team to assess Mrs Y. While I recognise she did this as the Council’s Housing team had told her she had provided no evidence from Adult Social Care, Ms X still explained to the Adult Social Care team that Mrs Y had night time care needs. At this stage the Council should have carried out a care assessment of Mrs Y to determine whether she had eligible care needs and if so what care she needed. Failure to do so was fault.
28. Before the Council issued its review decision on whether Mrs Y was entitled to an extra bedroom, Ms X told the Council’s Housing team that she had tried to obtain evidence from the Council’s Adult Social Care team but it had told her the Housing team was responsible. As the Housing team had previously told Ms X she did not have any evidence from Adult Social Care and the Council’s allocations policy also references this, it would have been helpful if there had been discussions between Adult Social Care and Housing to determine why the Adult Social Care team had refused to carry out an assessment. Instead the Housing team told Ms X it was her responsibility to provide the evidence in support of her review. I have found the Housing team at fault for this.
29. As I have found fault I need to consider what injustice this caused. By not carrying out a care assessment, Mrs Y could have missed out on care she was entitled to if the Council found she had eligible care needs. From the information provided, Mrs Y has a number of medical conditions and currently her children are providing care, which includes night time care. If the Council had assessed her it could also have carried a carers assessment out for her children and discussed with Mrs Y the different ways she can commission any care she is entitled to.
30. By telling Ms X in its original decision that she did not have any evidence from Adult Social Care, and for Adult Social Care to refuse to assess Mrs Y, meant there was no way she could obtain any possible supporting evidence from Adult Social Care that her mother had needs which could require an extra bedroom.

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Agreed action

31. Within one month of my final decision the Council agreed to carry out the following:
• Apologise to Mrs Y for not carrying out an assessment of her care needs.
• The Housing team and Adult Social Care team should clarify what supporting evidence applicants need from Adult Social Care Services when asking the Council for an additional bedroom as per the allocations policy, and how applicants can go about obtaining this.
32. Within three months of my final decision the Council agreed to carry out the following:
• Carry out an assessment of Mrs Y’s care needs. Once this has been completed the Council should then pass this to its Housing team who will make a new decision on whether Mrs Y is eligible for an extra bedroom.
33. The Council should provide us with evidence it has complied with the above actions.

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Final decision

34. I have completed my investigation and found there was fault by the Council which caused injustice. The Council agreed to the above actions to remedy the injustice caused.

Investigator’s decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman