Family To Receive £4,000 Compensation For 'Injustices' Caused By Eastbourne Council

Eastbourne Borough Council is to pay out more than £4,000, after being found to have caused ‘injustice’ to a man and his family.

In a recently-published decision, the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman has told the council to pay a man — referred to only as Mr X — at least £4,200 to compensate for the way it handled his housing case. 

Mr X had first approached the council for help in 2019, after being served notice to quit a private rental home where he lived with his wife and four children. This was because their landlord had been seeking to sell the property. 

After being approached by Mr X, the council reached an agreement with the landlord for the family to remain in the property until it was sold. The council said it would provide temporary accommodation when this happened.

Three of Mr X’s children have disabilities and complex needs. He and his wife are their full-time carers. These complex needs means the family requires each child to have their own bedrooms, the ombudsman said.

But when it came time for the council to make good on its commitment in April 2021, the family was offered a three-bedroom home as temporary accommodation. Given his children’s needs, Mr X declined the offer and no alternative accommodation has been offered since then. 

The ombudsman said:

“As a result, Mr X and his family remain in their private rented tenancy while their landlord continues to seek possession.

“They must live with the ongoing uncertainty about whether and when the council will accommodate them. This is an injustice to the family.

“The nature of the children’s disabilities mean that dealing with uncertainty is particularly challenging. This results in an increase in some behaviours which pose a physical risk to the rest of the family.

“Furthermore, one of Mr X’s children has attempted suicide. Mr X says this was because the child thought the family would get a new home more quickly if they needed fewer bedrooms.”

The council told the ombudsman that it had been unable to find a suitable place for the family, due in part to the shortage of five-bedroom houses within its stock. However, the ombudsman said the council had failed to show it had taken all the necessary steps to move the situation forward. 

These steps should have included looking into buying or leasing a new five-bedroom property, extending or converting one of its existing homes or asking another household to downsize.  

They also criticised the council’s actions after first being approached by Mr X, saying there was no evidence it had taken any action to prepare or plan for accommodating the family.

The ombudsman also noted that the landlord’s sale had fallen through as a result of the situation.

Other elements of the council’s response also came in for criticism from the ombudsman.

According to the ombudsman’s report, the council had first agreed to increase the family’s housing need from Band A to Band A* in November 2019. However, it did not actually do so until May 2021. The ombudsman said this caused ‘avoidable uncertainty and frustration’.

The report also criticised the way in which the council communicated with Mr X and his family, citing delays in correspondence. This had caused the family ‘additional avoidable stress’, the ombudsman said.

In light of their findings the ombudsman has told the council to apologise to Mr X,  pay him £500 in recognition of the distress caused by its ‘poor communication’ and a further £500 in recognition of its 30-month delay increasing the family’s banding to A*.

The council has also been told to pay Mr X £200 a month from April 2021 — the date from which it first accepted duty to house him. This amounted to £3,200 at time of the report’s publication, but will continue to be paid until the family finds a new home. 

All of these sanctions have been accepted by the council. 

An Eastbourne Borough Council spokesman said:

“We accept the findings of the ombudsman and have apologised to the complainant and are fully complying with the agreed action.

“We have completed a review of the housing needs service and implemented a number of improvements.  This includes establishing a new system of triage within our call centre with dedicated housing staff as our initial point of contact.  Additionally, we have installed a new internal IT system which significantly enhances communication with our customers. 

“We are in the process of launching a new training programme and have actioned a change in working practices to ensure that suitability assessments are completed on all households requiring emergency or temporary accommodation.”