City council refuses to fulfil Ombudsman remedies calling for payment to domestic abuse victim

Leicester City Council has refused to implement a Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman’s recommendation that it pay a domestic abuse victim £1,300 after she and her family were forced to live in bed and breakfast accommodation for 13 weeks longer than the maximum six-week period.

A report by the Ombudsman found that Leicester failed to provide the complainant with the right support when she asked it for help after she and her children fled their home to escape domestic abuse.

The council said it would only be partially acting on the Ombudsman’s recommendations as the sanctions were based on legislation that is more than 20 years old and did not take account of what the local authority says is a national housing crisis.

It added that making all of the payments “would be disastrous for local councils, setting a precedent that would cost them around £130m”.

Leicester placed the family in interim bed and breakfast accommodation before referring them to a refuge which provided self-contained accommodation.

The council failed to respond to the mother’s concerns that the accommodation was disturbing her children’s health conditions and was too far away from her support network.

The Ombudsman said that when the council did finally get in touch following her complaint, it told the mother to go back to the refuge for support.

Leicester finally accepted it had a housing duty four months after it should have done so, and it offered the family bed and breakfast accommodation.

However, it failed to tell the complainant that it had accepted the main housing duty towards her family, and of her right to appeal the accommodation’s suitability. The family remained in the B&B accommodation for 19 weeks.

The council eventually offered the family a one-bedroomed property, and while the council acknowledged that it was not suitable for the family, it again failed to tell the mother she could appeal.

Amerdeep Somal, Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman, said: “While I acknowledge the work Leicester City Council has already done to improve its support for homeless people in the city, and its acceptance of the service improvements I have recommended, I am disappointed with its reluctance to fully acknowledge what has gone wrong in this case. It is not accepting the gravity of the injustice to this family by not agreeing the pay the financial remedy I have recommended.

“The law states that families should only be put in bed and breakfast accommodation as a last resort, and this should be for no longer than six weeks. This family was in bed and breakfast accommodation for 19 weeks. The family was split over two rooms, and had no access to cooking facilities which no doubt had a significant impact on their mental health.”

Somal added: “The council has told me it has 170 other families who have been in this sort of accommodation for longer than six weeks. I hope the changes it is making will ensure that other families in Leicester are considered appropriately, and informed of their appeal rights in future.”

The Ombudsman recommended that the council should apologise to the mother and pay her £500 for the distress caused by not responding to her concerns about the suitability of the refuge accommodation. It has agreed to pay this amount.

Leicester also agreed to draw up an action plan for reducing the number of families it has in bed and breakfast accommodation, provide training for officers, and improve its template letters “to ensure they reflect people’s rights are highlighted”.

However, the recommendations that the council has not agreed to include the proposed payment of £1,300 for the distress caused by living in unsuitable bed and breakfast accommodation for longer than the family should have done.

It has also declined to pay the £150 per month the Ombudsman recommended for every month the complainant and her family remain in unsuitable temporary accommodation.

Cllr Elly Cutkelvin, Deputy City Mayor for Housing at Leicester said: “Five years ago we had no families living in B&B accommodation in Leicester. This year – owing to successive governments’ failures to tackle the housing crisis by building more new homes - we have 171 in B&Bs and a further 365 in other temporary accommodation, including hotels and self-contained flats. I understand how distressing this must be, and the impact it will have on everyday life.

“If a precedent were set by the Ombudsman’s recommendation, we would have to pay out £220,000 in recompense – money we simply don’t have.”

Cllr Cutkelvin added: “Nationally there are at least 100,000 families living in unsuitable temporary accommodation. If all councils were required to make payments to these families, this would cost around £130m, which would inevitably push more councils over the edge of the cliff they are already facing.

“Along with almost every other council in the country, we have limited ability to create the extra housing that would be needed to avert the need to keep families in B&B for more than six weeks, and are therefore hostage to forces beyond our control….

“We do accept that there were some failings in our service in this case. We are sorry for this, and have apologised to the family concerned. Staff training and recruitment is under way to ensure these failings are not repeated.”

Harry Rodd