The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about an application for discretionary housing payments. We would not be able to establish a direct link between the Council’s actions and any damage to Mr X’s health.
The complaint
Mr X, represented by his mother, complained about the Council’s handling of his application for discretionary housing payments (DHPs). He says after over three months, the Council decided to pay the DHPs he had applied for. However, Mr X says during that time the Council wrongly refused his claim for different reasons, changed its position and repeatedly came back to him for evidence, rather than asking for all the evidence at once.
Mr X, who has mental health problems, says this damaged his mental and physical wellbeing, he suffered vomiting and panic attacks, felt a loss of control over his life and had suicidal thoughts.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
The Ombudsman investigates complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’, which we call ‘fault’. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint, which we call ‘injustice’. We provide a free service but must use public money carefully. We do not start or may decide not to continue with an investigation if we decide we cannot achieve the outcome someone wants. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6)) The law says we cannot normally investigate a complaint when someone could take the matter to court. However, we may decide to investigate if we consider it would be unreasonable to expect the person to go to court. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(6)(c), as amended)
How I considered this complaint
I considered information provided by the complainant’s mother.
I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
I recognise what happened could well have been more worrying and difficult for Mr X than for someone without his health problems. Essentially, Mr X is claiming the way the Council dealt with his application damaged his health. However, the Ombudsman would not be able to make a direct connection between the Council’s administrative actions on the DHP application and any damage to Mr X’s health. That is essentially a claim of personal injury, which is not straightforward legally and is more appropriately for the courts than the Ombudsman to decide. As we could not decide this point, it would be disproportionate to investigate whether the Council was at fault.
Final decision
We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because we could not achieve what Mr X wants in directly linking any fault by the Council to an impact on his health. The courts are better placed to decide that point.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman