Summary: there was fault by the Council in the form of poor communication and delayed action following a decision taken by a panel in October 2021 regarding proposed minor adaptations to her property. This caused injustice to Ms B and the Council will take the action identified to remedy this

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I shall refer to as Ms B, says the Council failed to properly consider the needs for minor and major adaptations to her property since October 2021. Specifically, she says it:

1. did not agree to most of the minor adaptations recommended by an occupational therapist in October 2021 and, in addition, has not completed the re-siting of the radiator which was agreed then;
2. wrongly refused to consider extending the property as a major adaptation on the basis that the properly would still be overcrowded; and
3. did not rehouse the family as an alternative way to resolve the overcrowding issue.

2. Ms B says these alleged failings caused her injustice because the family has continued to live in a property that does not meet her children’s needs and is overcrowded.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. We investigate complaints of injustice caused by ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. 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)
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 discussed the complaint with Ms B and considered the written information she provided with her complaint. I made written enquiries of the Council and considered all the information before reaching a draft decision.
6. Ms B and the Council had an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I considered any comments received before making a final decision.
7. Under the information sharing agreement between the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman and the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills (Ofsted), we will share this decision with Ofsted.

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What I found

What should have happened

8. A Disabled Facilities Grant (DFG) is awarded by the housing authority to make adaptations to the home which are ‘necessary and appropriate’ to meet the disabled occupant’s needs, where it is ‘reasonable and practicable’ to carry out such adaptations.
9. But councils must fund adaptations to its own properties from their own housing revenue accounts rather than their DFG budget. The London Borough of Barking and Dagenham confirms it has a policy that progresses applications for adaptations to its own properties using its Housing Revenue Account (HRA).
10. Whether funding for adaptations is made under a DFG or from the Council’s housing revenue accounts, all applicants must be given equal access to funding.
11. Usually, the housing authority relies on the opinion of an occupational therapist to decide what is ‘necessary and appropriate’. Where the disabled occupant is a child, the housing authority may also consult children’s services.
12. Once the housing authority has information about what adaptations are necessary and appropriate, it has to consider whether these adaptations are reasonable and practicable having “regard to the age and condition” of the property. Minor adaptations (ramped access, or replacement of bath with a walk-in shower) are usually straightforward to assess – they are relatively inexpensive, technically undemanding, and do not need planning permission.
13. But major adaptations are more complex and different authorities take different approaches. Usually, an officer will visit to look at the site, and the current layout of the house, to understand what the possibilities are.
14. The Council has a housing allocations policy which states:
• The council will determine how many bedrooms are needed according to the number of people in the household;
• It will give reasonable preference to certain types of applicant including people who are living in overcrowded conditions;
• It will give additional preference to those with a reasonable preference but who also have an urgent need to move such as a medical condition.

What happened

Background

15. Ms B’s family comprises her, her partner and their five young children. Of these children, three are diagnosed with autistic spectrum and other disorders.
16. The Council confirms that up until 2019 the family was living in a two-bedroom property. The family was rehoused to a three-bedroom house following a fire in that two-bedroom property. Before the fire the family had a re-housing application with the Council that was registered for four-bedroom property with a level access shower. The Councils says there are very few four-bedroom properties and so, given the urgency of the need for a new property following the fire the Council placed the family in a three bedroom property with a level access shower as there was one available. It says the family was advised to register again for a four-bedroom property. The family made this application for a four-bedroom property in early 2021.

Matters related to this complaint

17. An assessment by the Council’s paediatric Occupational Therapy (OT) team was undertaken in October 2021. It confirms:
• The family lived in a three bedroom council owned property;
• An OT referral was made to consider providing for a specialist bed for one of Ms B’s children with special needs as she was getting out of bed and “potentially hurt(ing) herself”. By the time of the assessment Ms B had already purchased a more suitable bed. However, there were other concerns including safety of a window and window ledge and bedroom size;
• The OT recommended re-siting a radiator, changing the bedroom door, installing window height restrictors, a grab rail, changing a door entry system and resurfacing some external steps. She also recommended “explore creating an extra bedroom” within the existing property and confirmed that a report had been provided and was to be sent to a “housing specialist panel for re-housing consideration”.

Consideration of major adaptations

18. The Council says it major adaptations panel considered the OT’s recommendations in October 2021. It says the panel refused the request for the extension as the issue was one of overcrowding more than a need related to disability. The Council accepts it did not write to Ms B about this outcome at the time and that it did not tell her what would happen next.
19. The Council says the family was in fact placed on the “adapted housing priority list”. The Council says evidence demonstrates that officers checked Ms B’s priority for rehousing and shared a copy of the advisory report with officers in the Council’s accommodation team, but that it is not clear if the OT established how long she may have to wait for accommodation. The Council says that if the OT had established how long the wait might be, Ms B’s case could have been timetabled for discussion by the panel that was set up to consider disability related cases that did not meet the qualifying criteria for major funding, sooner. The officer coordinating the case went on long term sick shortly thereafter, so no further progress was made until a complaint was raised on 6 December 2021. The Council accepts it could have handled this issue more effectively and promptly.
20. In addition the Council accepts that if its housing allocations team had been told of the refusal of the major adaptations at the time it could have re-assessed her re-housing application then. In the event it did not reassess until May 2022 and it then agreed that she needed to be registered for a five bedroom property with a level access shower. However, the Council points out that she already had additional preference on the grounds of the children’s disability and the May 2022 reassessment did not award any additional priority, it simply agreed a larger property was needed. So, the delay in considering the outcome of the October 2021 did not mean she lost out on any additional priority.
21. The Council says the application has been awarded the highest level of additional preference but that it has only 18 five bedroom properties. Most of these are adapted properties but there are a number of other families with higher priority waiting of these and so it is likely the family will be waiting a long time before they are likely to be offered a five bedroom property with level access shower.
22. The Council also says that following the October 2021 panel decision on the major adaptations it should have explored other options for finding larger housing including looking for properties in the private sector given the shortage of its own housing that will be sufficiently large for the family. The Council says its officers will contact Ms B to discuss what help it may be able to give her with finding a property in the private rental sector and its rent deposit scheme.

Consideration of minor adaptations

23. The Council says officers considered the minor adaptations recommended by the OT in October 2021. They agreed to provide the grab rails and to move the radiator but did not agree to the other recommendations. The grab rails were duly installed. The Council accepts it did not properly inform Ms B of this decision and it acknowledged and apologised for this in its response to her complaint in March 2022.
24. In relation to the repositioning of the radiator, the Council says Ms B asked for the pipework to the radiators to be moved to underneath the floorboards when the radiator was moved. However, the Council would not agree to this as the cost for this additional work was not included in the agreed work to simply move the radiator. So the radiator was not moved as Ms B did not want the radiator moved unless the pipework was also moved.
25. The Council says that in an email it sent her in October 2021, the OT told her the other minor adaptations had been refused because the cost of completing this work exceeded the maximum spend and that this meant any further works would be delayed. The Council accepts this was not a reflection of the reasons given by the panel as to why it would not agree the other minor adaptations the OT recommended. An email from the panel that considered this confirms that works to change the door to her daughter’s bedroom was not agreed because replacing an internal door was not something for the Council to agree though Ms B could replace the door herself if she wished. The panel stated however, that if the reason for a different door was to enable the family to more easily check on their daughter while she was asleep, a baby monitor many be a more/equally effective solution. The panel did not agree to resurface the outdoor space either. It said this again was not work it would usually do and pointed out that the child for whom there was concern in this regard was mobile, climbing other stairs elsewhere and special floor coverings were not provided elsewhere in the community or at home so it saw no grounds for providing this and added that given her age she needed to be supervised in any case. The recommended change to the front door locking system was not agreed as the panel considered a cheaper and effective method of ensuring security was to fit a security door chain lock at the top of the door and this was something they could purchase and fit themselves.
26. The Council accepts that the reason given to her by the OT at the time did not accord with the panel’s reasoning and that the Council therefore accepts this caused Ms B confusion and, in fact, made the situation worse as it implied the works may be carried out at a later date when funding was available. And this was not the case.
27. The Council says Ms B later asked for a new OT assessment in 2022. It said that its officers wrote to her in April 2022 to say it would not complete a further assessment within a 12-month period unless her circumstances had changed. The Council says it offered to install window restrictors if she did not want to relocate the radiator because it would not move the pipework too. The Council says Ms B would not agree to this but that this decision was not confirmed in writing by Ms B.

Was the Council at fault and did this cause injustice?

28. The Council accepts it did not communicate effectively with Ms B about the decision on the major adaptations. It also accepts there was a short delay in considering the matter further at a panel set up to consider situations such as Ms B’s where there were issues of disability in the household, but major adaptations were not agreed and that it was only agreed then because Ms B complained. It also accepts there was delay in the matter being referred to the allocations team. These delays amount to fault and caused Ms B injustice in the form of frustration, uncertainty and lost opportunity. I do not however consider there are grounds for me to conclude Ms B lost out on being moved to a new property given the shortage of large enough properties and the number of families with higher priority for these. I cannot with any certainty say the family missed out on an opportunity to move to a property in the private sector as I cannot know whether the family would have wanted this or a suitable property may have been found. There are no grounds for me to consider the family has not been awarded the correct priority for re-housing.
29. I do not consider there is fault in the Council’s consideration of the OT’s recommendations for minor adaptations: the Council provided the recommended grab rails and would have moved the radiator but only did not do so as Ms B asked for additional work which had not been agreed. The Council did not agree to the other recommendations detailed above and it is not for me to consider the merits of its decisions on these recommendations: I am satisfied that the recommendations were considered as they should have been by the panel. However, I consider there is fault in providing Ms B with incorrect reasons for the decisions not to agree to some of the recommendations and this has caused her injustice in the form of avoidable frustration and uncertainty.

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Agreed action

30. When recommending a remedy we seek to remedy the injustice caused as a result of identified fault. The Ombudsman’s guidance on remedies states:
• for injustice such as avoidable distress we usually recommend a symbolic payment to acknowledge the impact of the fault as we cannot put the complainant in the position they would have been had the fault not occurred;
• distress can include anxiety, uncertainty, lost opportunity and frustration;
• typically remedy payments for distress are a moderate sum of between £100 and £300. We may recommend more where distress was severe or prolonged.
31. For the injustice identified in this complaint the Council will, within one month of the date of the final decision on this complaint:
• apologise in writing for the identified faults;
• the Council has offered a remedy payment of £450. I consider this to be a payment to recognise the identified distress that falls within our guidance referred to above and the Council will now make this payment to Ms B; and
• if it has not already done so, it will arrange a discussion with Ms B about support it can offer with a property in the private rented sector as soon as possible.
32. In order to ensure that similar faults to not recur in future the Council will, within three months of the final decision on this complaint, let us know:
• what mechanisms it will put in place to ensure that proper action is taken following decisions taken by panels such as the one in this case where action needed is taken promptly and referred on to the correct departments and officers; and
• how it will ensure that case officers fully understand and communicate accurate reasons for panel decisions to service users.

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Final decision

33. There was fault by the Council in the form of poor communication and delayed action following a decision taken by a panel that considered the OT’s recommendations in October 2021. This fault caused injustice to Ms B and the Council will take the agreed action to remedy this.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman