Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about how the Council dealt with Ms X’s homelessness. Our main reasons are that part of the complaint is late without good enough reason to investigate it now, and on another part of the complaint Ms X could reasonably have used her court appeal right.

The complaint

1. Ms X complains about the Council’s handling of her homelessness.

Back to top

The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
3. 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)
4. The law says we cannot normally investigate a complaint when someone could take, or could have taken, the matter to court. However, we may decide to investigate if we consider it would be, or would have been, unreasonable to expect the person to go to court. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(6)(c), as amended)
5. It is our decision whether to start, and when to end an investigation into something the law allows us to investigate. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 24A(6) and 34B(8), as amended)

Back to top

How I considered this complaint

6. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
7. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

Back to top

My assessment

8. Ms X says the events complained of date back some years. She complained to us in December 2024. Any complaint about the lack of Council support before Ms X became homeless in early 2023 is late, so the restriction in paragraph 3 applies. I appreciate Ms X has had health and family problems, but I consider she could reasonably have complained to us much sooner about those matters.
9. The complaint is also about events regarding Ms X’s homelessness in 2023. This includes: the Council providing interim accommodation with inadequate sleeping space for Ms X and her child for about a month in early 2023; whether the Council did enough to help with Ms X’s homelessness up to September 2023; and the Council ending its homelessness duty in September 2023. The complaint about these events is also late. I appreciate Ms X had health problems and was focussed on a family matter until court action regarding that matter ended in November 2023. However, I still believe Ms X could reasonably have complained to us about each of those points of complaint within 12 months of each event.
10. For these reasons we will not investigate the late parts of the complaint now.
11. Also, when the Council ended its homelessness duty in September 2023, Ms X had the legal right to ask it to review its decision. (Housing Act 1996, section 202) Ms X used that right. The Council’s review overturned the decision and reinstated the homelessness duty. The possibility that a homelessness decision will be wrong is inherent in the law about councils’ homelessness duties, and the law provides a procedure to correct such matters. Ms X used that procedure, and the Council changed the decision. It is not appropriate for us to step in where the relevant review right was used. Nor is it likely we could add anything significant by investigating this point now.
12. The complaint about events since December 2024 is not late. The central point in the complaint about these events is that the Council has only offered Ms X accommodation for a single person, not accommodation large enough for her child. When the Council reinstated its homelessness duty to Ms X in February 2024, its duty to provide temporary accommodation also reactivated. The Council’s position was that, as Ms X’s child was no longer living with her, it would only offer Ms X accommodation for a single person. Ms X had the right to ask the Council to review the suitability of any accommodation it offered. When the Council offered Ms X new accommodation for a single person, Ms X refused it, so the Council ended its homelessness duty again. Ms X again sought a review. The Council’s review decision upheld the ending of the homelessness duty because Ms X had refused accommodation for a single person. Ms X then had the right to appeal to the county court on a point of law. (Housing Act 1996, section 204) Whether the Council had properly considered if it should include Ms X’s child in the household, and therefore whether only offering single-person accommodation was suitable, were points of law. So the restriction in paragraph 4 applies here.
13. The law expressly provides the court appeal route for challenging such decisions, so we normally expect people to use it. The court could make a binding decision and overturn the Council’s decision if it saw fit, unlike the Ombudsman. There might be a potential cost to court action, but that is not in itself automatically a reason to consider court action unreasonable. Ms X could have got help with court costs if she was eligible and could have asked the court for her costs if her appeal succeeded. I acknowledge Ms X’s health and family circumstances are difficult. However, she is able to pursue matters. She could have sought help from an advice agency, solicitor or law centre. For these reasons, I consider it would have been reasonable for Ms X to use her court appeal right.
14. Ms X is also unhappy about other Council actions in 2024: a delay offering more accommodation after reinstating the homelessness duty; the attitude of Council officers; and the handling of Ms X’s communications including her request for a meeting. These are peripheral to the main point about whether the Council offered suitable accommodation. We are not investigating that point because of the court appeal right. It would be disproportionate for us to investigate these points even if the court appeal right would not provide a complete remedy for all points of the complaint.
15. Ms X suggests the Council’s actions in 2023 affected court proceedings about whether her child should live with her and its later actions affected her chances of changing the court decision on that point. It is not for us to speculate about that. It was for the court to make the relevant decisions. If Ms X thought the court’s decisions were wrong or were unduly influenced by her housing situation, it was for her to raise that in court.
16. Ms X wants compensation for various damages she says the Council’s alleged faults caused her, including the impact on her health. It is not our role to assess losses or award compensation, and we direct people to the courts where that is their primary goal. These matters are not straightforward legally. It is reasonable to expect Ms X to take court action if she wants a decision about compensation.
17. Ms X is also unhappy with the Council’s handling of her complaint. It is not a good use of public resources to investigate complaints about complaint procedures, if we are unable to deal with the substantive issue.

Back to top

Final decision

18. We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint. Part of the complaint is late without good enough reason to investigate it now. We could not usefully add to the outcome of the Council’s homelessness review in 2023. On the complaint about more recent events, it is reasonable to expect Ms X to have used her court appeal right. Although the court appeal right would not necessarily give Ms X all the remedy she wants, that does not mean we will investigate. It is also not our role to decide if Ms X should get compensation.

Back to top

Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman