The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: Miss X complained about delays and errors in how the Council considered her application for a home repair grant. There was fault in how the Council managed and responded to Miss X’s grant application. This caused Miss X uncertainty and frustration for which the Council agreed to apologise and pay a financial remedy.
The complaint
Miss X complains about delays and errors in how the Council considered her application for a home repair grant. She says delays on the part of the Council meant that the cost of the work has increased and requires a charge on her property, which she says would affect her ability to re-mortgage. She also says the works have not yet been done, which has impacted her disabled son’s ability to safely use their garden.
She wants the Council to provide a grant for the full cost of the works without the requirement of a charge on her home.
What I have investigated I have investigated how the Council managed Miss X’s second grant application from March 2019.
The final section of this statement explains my reasons for not investigating Miss X’s first grant application from 2018.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word fault to refer to these. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint. I refer to this as ‘injustice’. If there has been fault which has caused an injustice, we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended) We consider whether there was fault in the way an organisation made its decision. If there was no fault in the decision making, we cannot question the outcome. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended) When considering complaints, if there is a conflict of evidence, we make findings based on the balance of probabilities. This means that we will weigh up the available relevant evidence and base our findings on what we think was more likely to have happened.
This complaint involves events that occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Government introduced a range of new and frequently updated rules and guidance during this time. We can consider whether the council followed the relevant legislation, guidance and our published “Good Administrative Practice during the response to COVID-19”.
If we are satisfied with an organisation’s actions or proposed actions, we can complete our investigation and issue a decision statement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 30(1B) and 34H(i), as amended)
How I considered this complaint
I considered: the information Miss X provided and discussed the complaint with her; the Council’s comments on the complaint and the supporting information it provided; and relevant law and Council policy.
Miss X and the Council had an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I considered their comments before making a final decision.
What I found
Home repair grants The Council operates a Home Repairs Grant / Loan scheme. This provides grants of up to £5,000 and a further interest-free loan of up to £25,000 to pay for essential repairs to privately owned or rented homes.
In some circumstances, applicants might be assessed as having to make a contribution towards the costs of the works based on their income. In these cases, the assessed contribution is deducted from the maximum grant amount.
Where the Council awards a grant, it places several conditions on the applicant for a 5 year period. Where the property is sold within that period, the applicant must repay the grant to the Council. The Council registers this restriction with the land registry.
If the costs of the works exceed the grant amount, the Council offers a further interest-free loan of up to £25,000. This loan is secured against the applicant’s property and must be repaid when the property is sold, or when the applicant dies.
Disabled facilities grants Disabled Facilities Grants (DFGs) are provided under the terms of the Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996. Councils have a statutory duty to give grant aid to disabled people for certain adaptations. Before approving a grant, a council must be satisfied the work is necessary, meets the disabled person’s needs, and is reasonable and practicable. DFGs are not intended to fund extensive repairs to properties.
What happened
Background
Miss X lives, with her son, in a semi-detached property which she owns through a mortgage. Miss X’s son has various health conditions which are helped by him being able to access the garden. However, the garden requires repairs to make it safe for her son to access and for him to use equipment provided by a charity.
Miss X first approached the Council to ask for help with repairs to her garden in 2018. She applied under the Council’s Home Repairs Grants/Loans scheme. The Council contacted Miss X in March 2019 as it had not received her application form. Miss X told the Council she had returned the application several months ago, but agreed to complete a new form, which she submitted at the end of March 2019.
2019 grant application Around a week after submitting her second application in March 2019, Miss X also asked the Council about disabled facilities grants (DFGs) but the Council told her these did not cover works to gardens.
The following day, in early April 2019, the Council confirmed it had received Miss X’s grant application. Miss X then twice chased the Council for updates in late May 2019. At the end of May, the Council asked Miss X to send it more evidence of her income, which Miss X sent to the Council in late June 2019.
The Council wrote to Miss X in late August to confirm that it was likely she would not need to contribute to the costs of the work, based on her income, but that the final grant amount would depend on the costs of the necessary works. The Council explained it would need to arrange for a grant surveyor to inspect the property and prepare the necessary plans. Miss X confirmed to the Council that she wished to proceed with the grant in early September 2019.
Although the Council allocated her application to a surveyor within a few weeks, the surveyor did not contact Miss X until early May 2020, after Miss X again chased the Council twice for updates in both January and May.
At the end of July 2020 the surveyor produced a specification for the works needed which included: removal and replacement of the existing garden paving; removal of an existing garden wall; and replacement of the wall and addition of a supporting planter to accommodate an existing tree.
Miss X told the Council she wanted to manage the project herself, to avoid the additional costs of the Council doing this. The surveyor sent Miss X a copy of the specification so that she could seek quotes for the work.
Miss X sent the Council a quote for the works in October 2020. The surveyor queried whether this quote included the works needed to the wall and also told Miss X she needed at least two quotes. Miss X confirmed the quote did include the works on the wall and said she had provided a quote with her original application. However, this quote was from 2018 and was produced before the specification was finished in 2020. The Council told Miss X she would need another, up-to-date quote for the works. Miss X provided this in early December 2020.
In mid-January 2021, the Council approved Miss X’s grant using the two quotes she submitted. Miss X’s preferred contractor wanted part-payment in advance of the work starting or a written guarantee from the Council, which the Council’s grant scheme does not allow. The Council agreed to confirm this with the contractor, reassure them that there was a grant agreement in place for the works and explain the Council paid after the works were completed. Miss X said that the lack of written guarantees meant that the contractors pulled out.
Between June and August 2021, Miss X’s neighbour alleged that trees in Miss X’s garden were causing damage to their property. Miss X secured a grant from a charity to cover the costs of removing the trees.
In early August 2021, Miss X contacted the Council to tell it the situation had got worse, the costs of the works had increased and would no longer be covered by the approved grant. Miss X told the Council she had looked into getting a loan for the increased costs, but that she was not eligible for one. The surveyor arranged for another contractor to estimate the new costs of the works and sent a request for a discretionary increase in the grant amount to a senior Council officer.
The officer wrote to Miss X in late September 2021 asking for further information so they could consider her request for an increase in the grant. They asked Miss X to send: three month’s bank statements and an explanation about her household income and expenses; evidence that Miss X could not obtain a loan to cover the costs above the maximum grant, as she had stated in her request for a larger grant; and evidence from Miss X’s mortgage broker that accepting the interest free loan from the Council would affect her ability to re-mortgage in future.
Alternatively, the officer explained that Miss X would be eligible for an interest free secured loan from the Council for the cost of the works above the £5,000 grant.
Miss X was not satisfied with the Council’s response, so she made a formal complaint about how the Council had handled her grant application. In the meantime, the wall in her garden had become so dangerous that the Council notified its building control team of the risk.
Complaint to the Council The Council sent its first stage response to Miss X’s complaint in mid- November 2021. In its response the Council clarified some of the wording used in its September letter to Miss X and explained why it needed further information from her to consider a discretionary increase to the grant amount.
Miss X asked the Council to review her complaint at the second stage of its complaints procedure, which it did in mid-December 2021. In this response the Council explained that there would be a 5-year charge on Miss X’s property, even in the case of a grant (rather than a loan). It also noted that some of the delay was due to contractors pulling out because they wanted money up-front and that there was no longer an issue with the trees which had been removed.
The Council then considered Miss X’s complaint at the final stage of its complaints procedure. The Council’s independent adjudicator reviewed Miss X’s complaint and found that: there was an initial delay of a few weeks in 2019 before the Council asked Miss X for further information, but that this did not significantly affect her application; there was a delay of eight months in the surveyor contacting Miss X. While some of that was accounted for by the COVID-19 pandemic, this only partially justified the delay. The independent adjudicator decided that six months of the delay were avoidable; although the surveyor took three months to prepare the specification for the works, this was not an unreasonable period of time given the importance of the specification and the pressures of COVID-19 at the time; there was a short delay in the Council approving Miss X’s grant after she provided the second up-to-date quote, but given this was around Christmas time, this explained the delay; the Council incorrectly told Miss X that DFGs did not cover work to gardens, but this did not have a significant impact since the works Miss X needed were repairs, rather than adaptations, which DFGs did not cover; and the Council had failed to update the specification for the works after the trees were removed.
The independent adjudicator found that while there had been some delays on the Council’s part, there were other delays in the grants process which were outside the Council’s control. Therefore, the adjudicator could not say that if the Council had acted without the avoidable delay that the works would have been completed within the original grant amount. The adjudicator recommended the Council: apologise to Miss X for the delays; pay her £100 to recognise the distress and uncertainty about the outcome; update the specification so Miss X could seek new quotes for the work now necessary and; review the terms and conditions for the grant scheme to ensure they contained up-to-date contact details.
Miss X complained to the Ombudsman because she felt the independent adjudicator had made mistakes in considering her complaint, including: using an incorrect picture and description of her home; given too much emphasis to the removal of Miss X’s trees; and not properly understood her complaint about how the Council responded when the costs increased.
My findings
It is not our role to decide if Miss X was eligible for the grant or whether the Council should make an exception to its scheme; that is the Council’s responsibility. Our role is to assess whether the Council made its decision properly and followed the rules of its scheme.
Delays in the grant process The Council has accepted there were delays in how it handled Miss X’s grant. I agree with the Council’s findings that there was an avoidable delay of around six months when the case was first allocated to a surveyor. This was fault. I also agree with the Council’s view that the other delays were either explained by the COVID-19 pandemic or did not significantly affect Miss X’s application.
The evidence shows that, after the Council approved Miss X’s grant in January 2021, Miss X chose to take responsibility for arranging the works in accordance with the grant agreement. This stated clearly the Council would only pay for the works after they were completed to the Council’s satisfaction. The Council did not have to provide written assurances of payment, but it did agree to confirm its payment terms to Miss X’s contractors. The Council was not responsible for any delays in arranging the start of the works after it approved the grant agreement or for the difficulties Miss X had in agreeing payment terms with contractors.
Both Miss X and the Council agree the costs of the works have likely increased. Since the works have not been completed and due to the difficulties Miss X had in finding a contractor who would complete the works without an up-front payment or written guarantee, I cannot say that, if there had been no delays on the part of the Council, the work would have been completed within the original approved grant amount. However, I am satisfied there is a remaining uncertainty about what the outcome would have been had the Council approved the grant six months sooner than it did.
Response to the increase in costs After Miss X told the Council the costs had increased but that she would not be able to afford to pay for the difference, the Council arranged for an up-to-date estimate and to consider providing a larger grant than normal. The Council acted quickly to arrange a new estimate, but I am not satisfied the Council properly explained what was happening to Miss X or gave her enough notice about a visit from the Council’s contractor. That lack of explanation was fault which caused Miss X avoidable frustration and confusion.
The Council did not request a firm quote for the work, since it got the estimate only for the purpose of the discretionary grant decision. Therefore, I am satisfied it was not fault that the Council did not expect to provide a copy of the estimate to Miss X. However, the Council should have updated the specification before getting an estimate.
I do not consider the Council was at fault for asking Miss X to provide additional evidence in support of her request for a discretionary increase of the grant. We expect councils to base their decisions on up-to-date evidence and the information the Council asked for was based on what Miss X told it in her August 2021 letter.
The Council’s grant scheme sets a maximum grant of £5,000, with amounts above this up to £25,000 covered by an interest free loan. In both cases, either a grant only or a grant and loan, the scheme requires a charge to be placed on Miss X’s property. It is not fault for the Council to require such a charge in line with its scheme. The Council has said that it is prepared to cover the increased costs under the scheme, but this would require Miss X to agree to an interest free loan for the costs above £5,000, unless the Council agrees to a discretionary increase to the grant amount. This is in line with the Council’s scheme and does not amount to asking Miss X for a contribution to the costs of the works under the Council’s scheme.
Communication Miss X had to chase the Council about her applications on several occasions and the Council did not always reply when she did so. While there were times when the Council was responsive, there were also times when the Council was not. I am satisfied the periods of poor communication were fault which caused Miss X avoidable frustration.
Complaint handling I am satisfied the Council’s stage one and two responses addressed the points Miss X raised at each stage. While the Council did use incorrect wording to describe the wall which needed replacing and mis-understood the impact of the tree removal on the works, I do not think this affected the outcome of the complaint.
Similarly, although there were some errors in the information contained in the stage three independent adjudicator’s report, these were minor factual errors and did not affect the findings. I understand how these errors caused Miss X to lose faith in the adjudicator’s consideration of her complaint, but I am satisfied the adjudicator generally considered the key issues when making their decision. However, I am not satisfied the recommended payment fully recognised both the uncertainty caused by the delays and the frustration caused by the poor communication from the Council.
Agreed action
Within one month of my final decision the Council will: apologise to Miss X for the avoidable delays in arranging her grant application and the other faults identified above; pay Miss X £300 to recognise the uncertainty, frustration and time and trouble she was caused. If the Council has already paid Miss X the financial remedy it offered in its final complaint response, it need only pay the difference; and if it has not already done so, provide Miss X with an updated specification / schedule of works so that she can seek updated quotes for the necessary works.
Final decision
I have completed my investigation. There was fault in how the Council managed and responded to Miss X’s grant application. This caused Miss X uncertainty and frustration for which the Council has agreed to apologise and pay a financial remedy.
Parts of the complaint that I did not investigate I have not investigated how the Council managed Miss X’s first grant application from 2018. We can only consider late complaints if we decide there are good reasons to do so. Although Miss X said the Council did not respond to her first application, she did not chase this up with the Council. I am satisfied Miss X could have complained about the first application sooner and there are no good reasons to consider this now.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman