Summary: Mrs X complained of the Council’s handling of her Disabled Facilities Grant (DFG) application after it delayed commissioning a contractor to carry out adaptations to her house for her disabled son (Y). The Council is at fault because it took 16 months after receiving Mrs X’s DFG application to contact contractors and progress the adaptations. The Council agreed to make a payment to recognise the distress, frustration and uncertainty this has caused. However, the subsequent delay in completing the adaptations was outside the control of the Council.

The complaint

1. Mrs X complained of the Council’s handling of her Disabled Facilities Grant (DFG) application. She says the Council has delayed commissioning a contractor to carry out adaptations to her house for her disabled son. As a result, her son’s needs are not being met. This has caused Mrs X distress, frustration and uncertainty.

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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 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)
3. 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

4. I have considered information Mrs X has provided.
5. I considered information from the Council.
6. I considered the relevant law and guidance.
7. Mrs X and the Council had an opportunity to comment on the draft decision. I considered comments before making a final decision.

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What I found

Relevant Law and Guidance

8. Under the Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996, councils can award Disabled Facilities Grants (DFG) to people whose disability means their home needs adaptation. If the person applying meets the qualifying criteria the council must award the grant.
9. Councils only approve grants for work they decide is necessary. An occupational therapist usually assesses need. Where a borough council is responsible for DFGs, the occupational therapist may work for a county council. Borough and county councils should work together to provide a well-coordinated DFG service.
10. A council must decide if the proposed works are necessary and appropriate to meet the needs of the disabled person. It must also be satisfied it is reasonable and practicable to carry out the works given the condition of the property to be adapted. In cases where major adaptations are required and it is difficult to provide a cost-effective solution, councils may consider the possibility of supporting a person to move to a more suitable home.
11. In order to ensure good value for money, the Council needs to consider the most appropriate tendering procedures. At a minimum, it will normally require 2 competitive estimates.
12. In England the maximum entitlement of grant under the DFG is currently set at £30,000 per applicant, and authorities are not required to provide additional costs over this maximum but can top up grants, as agreed locally and set out in their local Housing Assistance Policy.
13. A Council must notify an applicant for a grant as soon as reasonably practicable, and, in any event, not later than six months after the date of the application concerned, whether it has approved or refused the application. It is a condition of payment of every grant that the eligible works are then carried out within twelve months from the date of approval of the application concerned.
14. Disabled Facilities Grant (DFG) delivery: Guidance for local authorities in England suggests it should take 70 working days to be at the stage of designing and pricing the adaptations in urgent and complex cases. The guidance suggests urgent and complex adaptations should be completed within 130 working days.

What happened

15. Mrs X has a disabled child (Y) who cannot use the stairs and bathroom upstairs without assistance because of seizures. An Occupational Therapist (OT) carried out an assessment in July 2021 because Mrs X wanted the house adapted to meet Y’s needs. The outcome of the assessment was to submit a feasibility request to build a downstairs bedroom and wet room at the back of the property.
16. In December 2021, the Council assessed the works as feasible. In April 2022, the Council completed the relevant documents such as a landlord agreement in principle.
17. The Council commissioned an architect in May 2022 and they surveyed and measured the house the following month. The Council did not receive the architect’s drawings until December 2022 as its architect was working on three other major DFG adaptations at the time. Once in receipt of the drawings, the Council gave planning permission in April 2023 and requests went out to contractors to quote for the work.
18. In September 2023, the Council confirmed with Mrs X that none of the contractors had returned quotes. Between September-November 2023 the Council continued to try and obtain quotes.
19. In November 2023, Mrs X complained about the delays with the DFG process. The Council sent a stage one response in January 2024 explaining it had tried to get quotes to carry out the adaptation but contractors had declined the work. The Council said it was currently working on a second round of tendering to get a price for the work. At the end of January, a contractor provided the Council with a quote. However, it still required a second quote.
20. Mrs X escalated her complaint to stage two and in February 2024 the Council provided a response. The Council agreed the process had taken an unacceptable amount of time to get to the stage of contractors agreeing to quote for the work she required. It said it is currently reviewing the situation and trying to source other contractors.
21. In May 2024, Mrs X approached various contractors herself to enquire about the proposed adaptations. One company came round to measure up, but Mrs X said she has not heard anything since.
22. Mrs X remained unhappy with the Council’s handling of the matter and complained to us.
23. Since Mrs X has complained to us, the Council received another quote in July 2024. The contractors have said it will cost £117,000. The grant awarded by the Council is £40,000. This includes the £30,000 mandatory grant plus £10,000 discretionary top up sum. There is still a shortfall of £77,000 so the Council cannot approve the grant sum.

The Council’s response to our enquiries

24. The Council said it holds a list of over 20 contractors to undertake DFG projects but it cannot enforce contractors to take on a project they do not want to do. It obtained verbal feedback from contractors who said they did not want to commit to the work as it was labour intensive and time consuming. Overall, the Council says the predominant feature in holding up the grant has been obtaining quotations.
25. The Council said the Technical Officer wrote to Mrs X in September 2024 informing them of the shortfall and has been assisting with trying to find alternative sources of funding. Y already has some equipment to help him use the bathroom. However, an OT is going to visit Mrs X to see if it possible to put in a stair lift to reduce the risk of Y falling on the stairs.
26. The Council said it has offered to support Mrs X with bidding for a new property via the Council’s letting scheme, Homefinder. However, Mrs X is not keen to move from the property because it is family owned and is reluctant to move out of the area because of Y’s education.

My findings

27. The Council assessed the DFG application as feasible in December 2021 but did not send requests for quotes until 16 months later in April 2023. The guidance suggest the Council should have aimed to have been at the stage of requesting and obtaining quotes within 70 working days of the application. There was a significant delay with the Council getting to the stage of contacting contractors which was fault and caused the matter to drift without meaningful progression. The OT carried out their assessment in July 2021 but the Council did not assess the DFG as feasible until six months later in December 2021. It was not allocated to a technical officer for another four months which was April 2022. An architect was appointed in May 2022 but it took seven months (December 2022) to get the drawings. It then took a further four months to get planning permission at which point contractors were contacted. On a balance of probabilities, had the Council sent out the requests to contractors sooner, it would have concluded sooner that the project was not financially possible under DFG funding and could have explored other options earlier. Y’s needs have not been met for longer than necessary which has caused Mrs X distress, frustration and uncertainty.
28. Once the Council started contacting contractors in April 2023, it took 15 months to get the two quote minimum it required to proceed. Although delayed, the Council did make sufficient efforts to obtain the quotes, but the process was delayed due to contractors not wanting to take the project on due to the complexity and labour intensive nature of it. This is outside of the Council’s control. Mrs X faced similar barriers when contacting contractors. This was not fault.
29. While the Council is working with Mrs X to acquire more funding, it is also carrying out a visit to see if a stair lift is feasible. If it is not, the Council can support Mrs X to bid for a new property on Homefinder should she want this. Mrs X can also explore options to top up the funding herself.

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Agreed action

30. Within one month of the final decision the Council agreed to take the following action:
1. Apologise to Mrs X to recognise the distress, frustration and uncertainty the delays in the DFG process have caused. We publish guidance on remedies which sets out our expectations for how organisations should apologise effectively to remedy injustice. The Council should consider this guidance in making the apology I have recommended.
2. Pay Mrs X £600 to recognise the distress, frustration and uncertainty the delays in the DFG process have caused.
3. Review the time taken to get from the OT referral to contacting contractors to determine what caused delays and what action can be taken to reduce such delays in future.
31. The Council should provide us with evidence it has complied with the above actions.

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Final decision

32. I completed this investigation. I found fault and the Council agreed to my recommendations to remedy the injustice caused by the fault.

Investigator’s decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman