Poor complaint handling and failure to consider a resident’s situation led to Brighton and Hove City Council being ordered to pay compensation to a mother and daughter.
The mother, referred to as Miss X in the Housing Ombudsman’s decision, complained that the council had not properly dealt with her daughter’s homelessness application.
The daughter, referred to as Miss B, became homeless in January last year. The council failed to offer her a suitable home and referred her to another council in an area where she was at risk of violence.
Miss B was under “significant distress” while living in an area where she did not feel safe for several months.
The ombudsman said that Miss B was a looked-after child under the care of an unnamed county council which stopped accommodating her when she turned 18.
She was offered interim housing by Brighton and Hove City Council – 50 miles away – and when she declined to move so far away, the council said that its duty to house her had ended.
Records showed that the council knew Miss B was a young care leaver with learning difficulties, mental health needs and difficulties travelling independently by public transport.
The ombudsman’s report said: “The records do not explain how these matters were taken into account when deciding the accommodation offered was suitable.
“They do not show whether supported accommodation for young people was considered.
“Nor do they show the council considered whether the distance from Miss B’s support network or her ability to manage the accommodation independently affected its suitability. That was fault.”
The council was found to have failed to properly record its assessment although the ombudsman added that Miss B was unlikely to have been placed in self-contained accommodation.
Brighton and Hove City Council approached two district councils. They declined to take her and officials referred Miss B to the county council because they did not believe that she had the capacity to make a homeless application.
The council was also found at fault for failing to inform Miss B of the decision by the two district councils that led to her being referred back to the county council.
Miss B went to live with her mother even though Miss X lived in an area where her daughter did not feel safe.
Miss X complained to the council. It took eight weeks to respond instead of its target of 10 working days.
The second-stage complaint, which the council’s procedures say should take 20 working days, took a further 13 weeks so the complaints made in December 2024 were not dealt with in full until June last year.
The ombudsman said that seven weeks of the delay happened after the council asked Miss X for more information.
The council accepted the ombudsman’s ruling and agreed to apologise to Miss X and Miss B and to pay token compensation – £100 to Miss X and £150 to Miss B.
The ombudsman told the council to remind housing officials of the requirements to notify applications of outcomes and to record properly the suitability of interim accommodation.
The council said: “We have fully accepted the ombudsman’s findings and the remedies set out.
“We recognise that this resident did not receive the level of service we aim for and have contacted them to apologise directly.
“As an organisation committed to learning and providing the highest possible service for our residents, we will be putting improvements in place to make sure this issue does not happen again.”
When will these clowns do their jobs properly?
When somebody get brought to book…
Why would they bother, costs them nothing to do nothing.
How is £250 compensation, and how is that anything other than encouragement to continue bad practices, given the expense of emergency and temporary accommodation? It’s not surprising they never get any better if this is the only thing that happens when they don’t do their jobs or follow the law.