Ombudsman issues series of recommendations including £13,800 payment after council accommodated mother two hours from school for disabled child

The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman has found fault with how Wandsworth Council assessed a family’s homelessness situation, after placing a mother in unsuitable accommodation two hours away from her disabled child’s school.

In its report the Ombudsman said that the mother and her family were originally placed in a flat which was accessed via a “rusted external staircase” in September 2021.

While living in the property, the mother, who also has mobility issues, slipped down the stairs that were still icy while carrying a younger child.

The Ombudsman noted that the council’s own children’s services department described the stairs as “treacherous”.

Following this, the family was moved to a second interim property. However, this was also a long way from the child’s school – which was named in his Education, Health and Care (EHC) Plan, the report noted.

The child’s school noted his attendance had reduced and he was often late, missing core subject learning, said the Ombudsman.

The family was offered a more suitable property in the borough in November 2022, but this was not ready for her to move into until May 2023.

The Ombudsman investigated and concluded that there were “significant delays” by the council when deciding whether it owed the main housing duty to the family.

Further, the council “failed to properly assess the family’s housing need – and neglected to ask about the child’s special educational needs (SEN) or his EHC Plan when deciding where to place them”.

The report noted that Wandsworth also failed to “properly assess” whether either property was suitable for the family, and whether it considered the distance to the children’s school, or the impact of the boy’s SEN, on that journey.

To remedy the injustice caused, the council was recommended to pay the mother £10,000, alongside a further £3,800 to reflect the additional costs she had getting her children to school – which it has agreed to.

The Ombudsman also made a series of other recommendations, which were to:

• share this report, and a summary of what went wrong, and changes made to ensure the faults do not recur, with all staff in its homelessness and housing allocations teams to identify learning from this case;
• remind relevant staff of the need to properly consider the applicant’s housing needs when carrying out a homelessness assessment, including any medical needs the household has and whether any children have special educational needs and an EHC plan. This should form the basis for the Council’s assessment of the suitability of any accommodation it offers homeless applicants;
• review its processes, particularly around the carrying out of homelessness assessments and preparing personalised housing plans (PHPs) to ensure that, where appropriate, homeless applicants are given information about who to contact for advice and assistance in relation to home to school transport assistance, changing a child’s school, and about contacting the special educational needs and disability (SEND) team if a child’s EHC plan may need to be transferred to another council;
• remind relevant staff of the need to notify the receiving authority where it places a household outside its area, and work with the receiving authority in advance of the placement to ensure the educational needs of any children in the household are met;
• remind relevant staff of the need to ensure that PHPs are kept under review, and that a review is carried out whenever the duty changes as a minimum;
• remind relevant staff of the need to consider whether interim and temporary accommodation is suitable, record how they considered this, and provide brief reasons in letters offering accommodation, with review rights if applicable;
• review its processes to ensure that where it takes more than a month between it offering alternative interim or temporary accommodation and it becoming available for occupation, it considers alternative properties for the applicant. It should also ensure it updates the applicant with the reason(s) for the delay and the likely timescale for the accommodation being available. It should provide updates every month after that until the accommodation is available for occupation; and
• remind its school transport appeal managers and panel that they should check the latest position regarding EHC plans, and remind them of the maximum journey times set out in the statutory guidance.

Paul Najsarek, Local Government and Social care Ombudsman said: “When assessing families’ homelessness situations, it’s really important that councils look at the circumstances in their entirety and take into account any medical or special educational needs, before deciding the interim or temporary accommodation offered.

“In this case, I am particularly concerned about the lack of joined-up working between the council’s homelessness and education teams.

“While I appreciate suitable accommodation is difficult to find for families, particularly in London, at no point did the council consider offering the family transport to get the child to school, which may have gone some way to alleviating the pressure on them. And in fact when the mother did apply, the council refused to consider her application because she was living in another council’s area."

Najsarek added: “I am pleased the council has accepted the recommendations in my report, and hope the valuable lessons gained from this family’s poor experience will help ensure other homeless families’ situations are considered more holistically in future.”

A spokesperson for Wandsworth council said: “We have accepted the ombudsman’s findings, are implementing his recommendations and are fully committed to learning the lessons of this case.”

Lottie Winson