Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about a home the Council offered to end its homelessness duty. This is mainly because it is reasonable to expect Miss X to use her court appeal right.

The complaint

1. Miss X complains of events related to the Council offering her a property to end its homelessness duty. Miss X argues the property is not suitable.

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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. The law says we cannot normally investigate a complaint when someone could take the matter to court. However, we may decide to investigate if we consider it would be unreasonable to expect the person to go to court. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(6)(c), as amended)
3. The courts have said that where someone has sought a remedy by way of proceedings in any court of law, we cannot investigate. This is the case even if the appeal did not or could not provide a complete remedy for all the injustice claimed. (R v The Commissioner for Local Administration ex parte PH (1999) EHCA Civ 916)

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How I considered this complaint

4. I considered information provided by the complainant and copy correspondence from the Council.
5. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

6. The Council offered Miss X a property to resolve her homelessness. Miss X considered the offer unsuitable for various reasons. Miss X used her legal right to ask the Council to review the suitability of the property. That review was underway when Miss X contacted us. By the time we started considering the complaint, the Council had issued its review decision upholding its view the property was suitable. An applicant who is dissatisfied with a review decision can appeal to the county court on a point of law within 21 days. (Housing Act 1996, section 204) Whether a Council has properly considered suitability of accommodation, as legally defined, is a point of law. The court could overturn the Council’s position and make a binding order if it sees fit. The 21-day period is still running.
7. If Miss X has appealed to the court, the restriction in paragraph 3 prevents us from investigating.
8. If Miss X has not appealed, the restriction in paragraph 2 applies. The law expressly provides this route for disputes about the suitability of accommodation, so we normally expect people to use this route. The Council’s review decision letter told Miss X about her right to take court action. So Miss X knew about the right and had the opportunity to seek advice or help with appealing if she considered that necessary. Miss X has mental health problems. I sympathise with that. However, Miss X has nevertheless been able to deal with matters, including asking the Council for a review and sending more information during the review. Miss X can ask the court to consider any reasonable adjustments for her. Overall, I consider it reasonable to expect Miss X to use her appeal right.
9. In that context, it would be disproportionate for us to investigate Miss X’s concerns about how the Council handled the offer and handled Miss X’s concerns about the offer. Those concerns are peripheral to the central point about the offer’s suitability, which we are not investigating.
10. The Council declined to put Miss X’s complaint about the matter into its complaint procedure, saying the statutory review procedure would deal with the matter. The Council said Miss X could complaint to the Ombudsman about its refusal to use the complaint procedure, not about the point about the property’s suitability. It is not appropriate to use the complaint procedure when there is a separate procedure for the central point at issue, which is the suitability of the property. I see no fault by the Council here. Also, 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.

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Final decision

11. We will not investigate Miss X’s complaint. It is reasonable to expect Miss X to use her court appeal right. It would be disproportionate to investigate peripheral points when we are not investigating the main part of the complaint about the suitability of the property the Council offered.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman