Summary: Mr X complained about how the Council responded to his concerns about his housing and anti-social behaviour. There was fault with how the Council responded to a noise nuisance Mr X reported and how long Mr X had to wait for a social care assessment. However, these did not cause Mr X an injustice. The Council agreed to provide training to its housing staff and review how it manages social care assessments.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains about how the Council responded to his concerns about his housing since March 2020. Mr X said the Council:
• failed to investigate excess noise and anti-social behaviour from his neighbours;
• wrongly reduced his priority for rent arrears which Mr X said he had already repaid;
• failed to investigate his reports that his property was in an unsafe condition; and
• did not provide him with appropriate support through social services.
2. As a result, Mr X says he has been living in unsafe accommodation which caused him significant distress and made him fear for his safety. He wants the Council to apologise for not helping him.

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What I have investigated

3. I have investigated how the Council responded to Mr X’s requests from March 2021.
4. The final section of this statement gives my reasons for not investigating events before this.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

5. 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 an injustice, we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)
6. 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)
7. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate. We cannot investigate late complaints unless we decide there are good reasons. Late complaints are when someone takes more than 12 months to complain to us about something a council has done. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26B and 34D, as amended)
8. 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.
9. 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

10. I considered:
• the information Mr X provided and discussed the complaint with him;
• the Council’s comments on the complaint and the supporting information it provided; and
• relevant law, guidance and Council policy.
11. Mr X and the Council had an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I considered their comments before making a final decision.

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What I found

Noise and anti-social behaviour

12. Under the Environmental Protection Act 1990 (EPA), councils have a duty to take reasonable steps to investigate potential ‘statutory nuisances’.
13. Typical things which may be a statutory nuisance include noise from premises or vehicles, equipment or machinery in the street.
14. For the issue to count as a statutory nuisance, it must:
• unreasonably and substantially interfere with the use or enjoyment of a home or other premises; and / or
• injure health or be likely to injure health.
15. There is no fixed point at which something becomes a statutory nuisance. Councils will rely on suitably qualified officers (generally an environmental health officer, or EHO) to gather evidence. They may, for example, ask the complainant to complete diary sheets, fit noise-monitoring equipment, or undertake site visits. Councils will sometimes offer an ‘out-of-hours’ service for people to contact, if a nuisance occurs outside normal working time.
16. Councils have a general duty to take action to tackle anti-social behaviour (ASB). But ASB can take many different forms; and councils should make informed decisions about which of their powers is most appropriate for any given situation.
17. For example, they may approach a complaint:
• as an environmental health issue, where the complaint is about noise or pollution; or
• using their powers under the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014.

Allocation of social housing

18. 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))
19. The Ombudsman may not find fault with a council’s assessment of a housing applicant’s priority if it has carried this out in line with its published allocations scheme.
20. The Council operates a choice-based lettings scheme which enables housing applicants to bid for available properties which it advertises. The scheme has five priority bands, A – E. Applicants are allocated a band based on their housing need.
21. The Council’s policy says that applicants who are former council tenants and still owe more than five weeks of rent arrears are allocated Band E unless they have an agreed repayment plan in place.

Disrepair in private housing

22. Councils have powers under the Housing Act 2004 to take enforcement action against private landlords where the Council has identified a hazard which puts the health and safety of the tenant at risk.
23. As with most enforcement, the decision to take action is discretionary and councils should investigate reports of hazards before deciding what action to take.

Adult social care

24. 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.
25. 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.
26. An adult with possible care and support needs or a carer may choose to refuse an assessment. In these circumstances councils do not have to carry out an assessment. Where a council identifies that an adult lacks mental capacity and that carrying out a needs assessment would be in the adult’s best interests, it must do so.

What happened

Events before 2021

27. Mr X lived in privately rented housing for several years before March 2021. During 2020, Mr X had contact with the Council about anti-social behaviour (ASB) from his neighbour at the time. The police became involved and court proceedings were started.
28. Mr X asked the Council to rehouse him because of the ASB. The Council accepted Mr X’s housing application but placed him in Band E because he owed arrears from a former council tenancy. The Council offered to refer Mr X for alternative temporary accommodation but Mr X refused this because it would likely have been a hostel or supported accommodation. The Council closed its housing case at the end of 2020 as it had not heard from Mr X for several months.

Events I have investigated

29. In March 2021, a health care worker supporting Mr X contacted the Council to find out what help the Council was providing with Mr X’s housing. The Council’s housing team explained that its case was currently closed due to Mr X not engaging with the support it had offered. The following month, Mr X’s MP contacted the Council for the same information and the Council gave the same explanation as it had done in March.
30. The next contact the Council received from Mr X was in October 2021, when Mr X raised concerns with the Council about the condition of his home, including electrical safety. Although the Council made a note of this concern, there is no evidence it took any action at the time.
31. In late October 2021, Mr X contacted the Council’s adult social care team. He asked for help both with rehousing, because of the condition of his property and noise from upstairs neighbours, and with care needs, including both mobility and cooking.
32. The social care team referred Mr X’s housing situation to its housing team and also offered to arrange a social care assessment for Mr X to support him in his current home.
33. Over the next two months, the Council’s housing and social care teams communicated extensively about Mr X’s situation. Both teams also spoke to and exchanged emails with Mr X several times. The Council’s records show that it:
• added Mr X to its waiting list for allocation to a social worker, though it explained that a social worker would not be able to arrange for Mr X to be rehoused;
• offered Mr X referrals to a mental health team for short-term support while he waited for a full social care assessment;
• checked again that Mr X still owed arrears from a former tenancy and whether payments had been made to this as Mr X claimed;
• explained how Mr X could increase his social housing banding by making an arrangement to repay the arrears; and
• offered to refer Mr X to its private sector housing team for help with the condition of his property.
34. The Council’s records, including emails between Mr X and the Council show that Mr X refused these offers of additional support and was insistent that he needed to be rehoused. The Council explained why it still believed Mr X owed arrears from a former tenancy and what Mr X needed to do to increase his priority for alternative housing.
35. Mr X made a formal complaint to the Council in January 2022. In its final response to Mr X in February 2022, the Council said:
• it had investigated Mr X’s arrears, was satisfied that he still owed arrears from a former Council tenancy and shared evidence of this with Mr X;
• advised Mr X to arrange to repay the arrears so that his priority for social housing could be increased; and
• it expected to allocate Mr X a social worker soon (the Council did so a few days later, although Mr X then declined to speak with the social worker).
36. Mr X was not satisfied with the Council’s response, so he complained to the Ombudsman in March 2022.

My findings

Noise and anti-social behaviour

37. For the reasons given at the end of this statement, I have not investigated the Council’s part in addressing the anti-social behaviour Mr X experienced from his former neighbour.
38. Apart from the queries from a health care worker and Mr X’s MP in early 2021, the next mention of noise from tenants above Mr X’s home was in December 2021 after the property had been empty for several months. Mr X mentioned noise from new upstairs neighbours, including noise from a washing machine and barking dogs.
39. There is no evidence the Council passed this information to its Environmental Health (EH) team, or that it told Mr X he could complain to the EH team about possible noise nuisances.
40. Based on what Mr X told the Council, I am satisfied he was raising concerns about excess noise from a residential property. The Council should have considered whether this was a statutory nuisance. It’s failure to do so was fault.
41. However, I am satisfied this fault did not cause an injustice to Mr X. The noise Mr X described was typical household noise and the evidence I have seen suggests it was unlikely the Council would have decided to take formal action against Mr X’s neighbour.

Allocation of social housing

42. The Council’s first decision that Mr X qualified for Band E under its choice based letting scheme was before March 2021 so, for the reasons given at the end of this statement, I have not investigated how the Council made this decision. Instead, I have considered how the Council responded to Mr X’s objections to this after March 2021.
43. It is not our role to decide if Mr X owes arrears for his former council tenancy or what Mr X’s priority should be; that is the Council’s responsibility. Our role is to assess whether the Council made its decision properly. We cannot question a decision the Council has made if it followed the right steps and considered relevant evidence.
44. Since March 2021, Mr X consistently objected to the Council’s decision that he owed arrears for a former council tenancy and therefore had reduced priority for social housing.
45. The evidence shows the Council reconsidered this issue several times in 2021. It sought further information from its rental team and considered Mr X’s claim that the arrears had been paid through deductions from his benefits. Based on this evidence, I am satisfied that the Council properly considered Mr X’s objections, sought appropriate evidence and explained the reasons for its decision to Mr X. Since there was no fault in how the Council made these decisions, I cannot question the final outcome.

Disrepair in private housing

46. There is no evidence the Council acted on the first information it received about disrepair in Mr X’s property in October 2021. Given the allegations Mr X was making, I am satisfied that the Council should have responded to these concerns at the time, rather than a month later.
47. However, when the Council did respond to Mr X’s concerns about this and offered to refer him to its private sector housing team, Mr X declined the referral. When Mr X did later agree to a referral, he then refused a visit from that team.
48. Disrepair in private housing does not mean that a Council must rehouse a private tenant. Council’s have other powers to tackle disrepair in private housing, which it was entitled to consider.
49. Therefore, I am satisfied the Council’s failure to consider Mr X’s October 2021 report did not cause an injustice.

Adult social care

50. Although Mr X had extensive contact with the Council’s adult social care team from mid-2021, his requests during much of this time were for help with rehousing, rather than his social care needs.
51. The Council appropriately referred the housing issues to its housing team, but it did identify that Mr X may also have social care needs and arranged a social care assessment for him.
52. The evidence shows Mr X had to wait for around four months to be allocated a social worker for an assessment. Assessments should be carried out in a reasonable period of time and I am satisfied that four months was too long to wait for an assessment. However, the Council did keep in touch with Mr X during the time he had to wait and offered referrals for urgent needs during that time. Despite this, I am satisfied that the delay was long enough to constitute service failure and was therefore fault.
53. However, when Mr X’s allocated social worker contacted him to complete the assessment, Mr X refused the assessment. I am satisfied that Mr X would likely have done so had the assessment taken place sooner and therefore the delay did not cause an injustice to Mr X.

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Agreed action

54. Within three months of my final decision the Council will:
• provide suitable training to its housing staff to ensure they can recognise when someone is reporting a possible statutory nuisance and how to refer the complaint, or complainant, to the appropriate team; and
• review how it manages social care assessments to ensure it can arrange and complete these within a reasonable period of time.

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Final decision

55. I have completed my investigation. There was fault with how the Council responded to a noise nuisance Mr X reported and how long Mr X had to wait for a social care assessment. However, these did not cause Mr X an injustice. The Council agreed to provide training to its housing staff and review how it manages social care assessments.

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Parts of the complaint that I did not investigate

56. I have not considered Mr X’s complaint about events before March 2021.
57. Mr X complained to the Ombudsman in March 2022, so his complaint about events before March 2021 is late. We can consider late complaints if we decide there are good reasons to do so. I am satisfied that Mr X could have complained about these earlier events sooner and there are no good reasons to consider these earlier issues now.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman