Agenda item

[Report of the Assistant Director for  Corporate Governance. To be introduced by the Cabinet Member for Corporate and Civic Services &Cabinet Member for Housing and Estate Renewal.]

 

To consider  the report of the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman in relation to Housing Benefit  and Council Tax  and confirm the actions that the Council  has taken or  has to take , under requirements of the Local Government Act 1974, Section 31(2) (as amended).

[The Cabinet Member for Neighbourhoods and the Cabinet Member for Local Investment and Economic Growth returned to the meeting – 20.44.]

 

The Cabinet Member for Corporate and Civic Services and Cabinet Member for Housing and Estate Renewal jointly introduced this report. Cabinet were informed that the Ombudsman had made a report finding fault with the Council in relation to a complaint made by Ms X and had asked the Council to take certain steps to remedy that fault. The complaint related to the way the Council dealt with her housing benefit and subsequent homelessness. This report summarised the Ombudsman’s report and the steps that had been taken to date. It also proposed further steps to be taken by the Council in response to the report.

 

The Cabinet Member for Corporate and Civic Services informed Cabinet that she had requested the Council carry out random checks every three or four months to make sure that people were following the correct procedures.

 

The Cabinet Member for Housing and Estate Renewal drew Cabinet’s attention to the compensation payments recommended by the Ombudsman to Ms X. The Cabinet Member noted that since May 2018, there had been a significant improvement in the service, specifically in benefit calculations.

 

In response to a question from Councillor James, Officers confirmed that lessons had been learnt and that the Council had carried out a number of checks, as per the Ombudsman recommendations. The Council had sampled 154 cases and found only 1 minor error in a case. The Council was also doing thorough checks and would be going through the full caseload of over 2,000 cases before 31^st March 2020 to ensure all was as it should be.

 

RESOLVED

1. To accept the findings and recommendations of the Ombudsman in the report shown at Appendix 1.

 

2. To authorise officers’ compensatory payments to Ms X totalling £5,587.94, as set out in paragraphs 4.7 and 4.10 below.

 

3. To adopt this report as the Council’s formal response under s.31 Local Government Act 1974, to be communicated to the Ombudsman.

 

4. To adopt this report as the Cabinet’s formal response as required by s.5A Local Government and Housing Act 1989, for distribution to all members and the Monitoring Officer.

 

Reasons for Decision

 

Overview

 

The Ombudsman’s report is dated 7^th October 2019 but was not published until 7^th January 2020. This is because publication was delayed due to purdah around the general election held on 12^th December 2019.

 

As set out in the Ombudsman’s report, Ms X has been found to have suffered injustices as a result of faults on behalf of the Council. In summary:

• Ms X’s housing benefit was calculated incorrectly and communicated to her landlord, leading to Ms X feeling pressured to leave the property.
• Ms X was also not immediately offered alternative accommodation on the basis of priority need or protection for her possessions that required storage, leading to her being placed in unsuitable accommodation for approximately 6 months and having to pay for storage of her property.

The Ombudsman has recommended that action be taken to remedy this. In essence, the recommendations seek to:

• Compensate Ms X and ensure her case is now being dealt with appropriately.
• Ensure that any similar past faults are identified and remedied.
• Ensure the fault is not repeated in the future.

The Ombudsman’s findings are accepted. The service is sorry for the mistakes made and is determined to learn from them. An apology has been given to Ms X, as set out at paragraph 4.10 below and the Council is seeking to remedy the mistake for Ms X by following the Ombudsman’s recommendations. Officers are also reviewing all similar cases in order to ensure that any similar mistakes in other cases are identified and corrected.

 

The Ombudsman’s recommendations are considered to be appropriate because:

• The Council must ensure Ms X’s case is now being dealt with appropriately in order to comply with its legal obligations in respect of housing.
• It is right to offer compensation to Ms X given the Ombudsman’s findings of injustice.
• The Council must identify both the errors that led to these faults and any similar past faults in order to remedy them and ensure it is now complying with its legal duties towards other service users. This will help prevent any similar injustices occurring in the future.

 

The Ombudsman’s recommendations

 

The Council should apologise to Ms X for the distress caused. 

 

The Council should pay Ms X within 1 month of the report:

·         £1,000 for the distress caused by denying her chance to appeal its housing benefit decision in October 2017, its initial miscalculation and for, without authority, informing her landlord that she was over £8,000 in debt with the Council;

·         £1,300 to recognise she was in unsuitable accommodation from the end of November 2017 to the end of May 2018, while she was actively seeking help from the Council or while the Council should have kept her case open; and

·         £500 for storage costs she incurred when she had to leave her rented property. Or, if Ms X can provide receipts for storage costs and for any furniture or possessions she had to dispose of, reimburse her for any loss she can evidence.

 

The Council should submit Ms X’s case to the first-tier tribunal if she still wants this to be done.

 

The Council should within 3 months of the report:

• Review the case to investigate why it made calculation errors and report the detailed findings to the Ombudsman.
• Audit cases where the Council calculated overpayments and applied the two-child restriction between July 2017 and March 2018 and report the findings to the Ombudsman. Where mistakes were made, it should correct those mistakes. If the audit reveals the Council calculated incorrectly in a majority of cases, it should complete a further review of all cases during that period or consider what other steps it should take to detect and remedy any systemic fault. The Council should inform us of any steps it has taken and explain why it considered its actions are proportionate and appropriate.

 

Action already taken

Officers have apologised to Ms X for the distress caused and made compensatory payments to Ms X totalling £5,587.94. This sum represents:

·         £1,000 for the distress caused by denying her chance to appeal the Council’s housing benefit decision in October 2017, its initial miscalculation and for, without authority, informing her landlord that she was over £8,000 in debt with the Council;

·         £1,300 to recognise she was in unsuitable accommodation from the end of November 2017 to the end of May 2018, while she was actively seeking help from the Council or while the Council should have kept her case open; and

·         £3,287.94 for storage costs and loss of possessions incurred when Ms X had to leave her rented property. Ms X has evidenced these costs and items.

 

Ms X wished to pursue her appeal and so officers referred Ms X’s case to the First-tier Tribunal in the summer of 2019. The First-tier Tribunal has since determined the appeal. The appeal was upheld but it was found that the Council has since correctly assessed Ms X’s housing benefit entitlement.

 

A review of Ms X’s case concluded that:

• The Council’s housing service was going through significant changes at the time as a result of preparation for and implementation of the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017 from 4^th April 2018. As part of those changes, there was a large number of new and inexperienced staff in the service. Different teams were responsible for progressing each step for a case and so cases were transferred between different teams accordingly. Three separate officers may have been involved.
• Ms X was not immediately offered alternative accommodation because it was recorded that she was living with her mother and this was not followed up or checked again with Ms X as it should have been.
• It had previously been identified that the use of multiple teams in the housing service could lead to difficulties in communication and service users falling between the gaps. Therefore, since 3^rd April 2018, service users have been allocated a Housing Needs Officer; a single point of contact who is accountable for managing the case throughout the assessment period.
• Her housing benefit entitlement was calculated incorrectly because the Council did not:
  • apply the ‘underlying entitlement’ rule as it was obliged to do. (I.e. it did not deduct from the overpayment the amount Ms X would have been entitled to if the Council had known the facts of the case throughout and had been notified of all changes of circumstances on time.)
  • provide an allowance for Ms X’s third child because it considered the two-child restriction applied. (This restriction applied to children born after 6^th April 2017 but Ms X’s children were born prior to that date.)

• There was a delay in applying the underlying entitlement rule because the requisite information was not provided until February 2018 and, due to backlogs, it was not processed until April 2018.
• An allowance was not provided for Ms X’s third child because, although the child was born before 6^th April 2017, his birth was notified to the Council after 6^th April 2017. Regrettably, it was not recognised that the child’s date of birth pre-dated 6^th April 2017 and this meant that the two child restriction did not apply.
• The backlog has now been eliminated as the new staff brought on prior to April 2018 now have significantly more experience and the new system has been in place for nearly two years.
• Staff have been reminded both of the general procedures and policies and the specific rules regarding the two child restriction. This will help ensure staff are aware of what they should be looking for in similar cases in the future.

 

Officers have audited 54 randomly selected housing benefit cases where the Council calculated overpayments and applied the two-child restriction between July 2017 and March 2018. The findings have been duly reported to the Ombudsman. The results showed that an error was made in one of the cases, resulting in an under rather than overpayment to the relevant claimant. This has been corrected and the claimant’s entitlement has been re-calculated so as to award the correct sum. The claimant has been notified and the amount of the underpayment paid to their bank account.

 

The service was audited by Mazars in March 2019 and was concluded with a finding of ‘substantial assurance’. The performance is in the top quartile of London boroughs.

 

Two public notice advertisements were placed in newspapers: (i) the Enfield and Haringey Independent on 8^th January 2020 and (ii) the Ham and High on 9^th January 2020, stating that copies of the Ombudsman’s report were available to inspect by the public at the Council’s offices for a period of three weeks.

 

Action it is proposed to take

 

The Ombudsman report recommended a review of all cases only if the audited revealed the Council calculated incorrectly in a majority of cases. Although the audit has shown an incorrect calculation in only one case, officers are nevertheless keen to ensure the correct action has been taken. Therefore, officers are currently undertaking a further review of all 2,056 housing benefit cases where the Council calculated overpayments and applied the two-child restriction between July 2017 and March 2018. Any mistakes that are identified will be corrected. This is expected to be completed by 31^st March 2020 and the results will be reported to the Ombudsman.

 

All cases with households with more than two dependent children will also be reviewed on a monthly basis for a further three months in April, May and June 2020, to ensure any similar errors are identified and corrected promptly.

 

Views of senior officers

 

The Monitoring Officer has consulted with the Chief Executive and Chief Finance Officer, and they agree with the recommendations within this report.

 

Alternative Options Considered

 

The Ombudsman cannot force the Council to follow its recommendations, but local authorities generally do follow them.

 

If the Ombudsman is not satisfied with the Council’s response, he will make a further report explaining this and making recommendations. He can also require the Council to make a public statement about the matter.

Therefore, Cabinet could choose to reject any of the recommendations made by the Ombudsman.

However, this alternative is not recommended because the Ombudsman’s recommendations represent an appropriate remedy for the reasons set out above.