A second report has been presented to a council by the Ombudsman following the local authority’s failures in the case of a man who required help for homelessness.
According to the Ombudsman, South Kesteven District Council did not carry out the right legal tests when determining whether it should offer the man interim accommodation while his homelessness application was being processed in 2024.
The man had told the local authority that medical staff had found his housing situation to be impacting his health during a previous hospital visit.
However, the Ombudsman confirmed that the council ‘consistently applied a much stricter test’ than the law requires for the decision to provide interim accommodation, with Mrs Amerdeep Clarke commenting that the ‘threshold is deliberately low’ for this duty.
The Ombudsman added that the council had also neglected to reconsider its choice despite being met with new information about the man’s wellbeing.
Since the report issued by the Ombudsman in August last year, the local authority has introduced just two of the recommendations. The Ombudsman has said that the council has refused to issue the man an apology or pay him £1,175 as a financial remedy for the distress created.
It has also reportedly refused to refresh its homelessness staff’s knowledge of the correct legal test for interim accommodation, the Ombudsman has argued.
The council told the Ombudsman that although the correct test was used, it was not recorded properly ‘due to an error in writing rather than consideration.’
Mrs Clarke said: ‘The public have a right to expect public bodies to keep accurate records about them. Accurate record keeping is central to good administrative practice and transparent decision making.
‘In this case, not only did South Kesteven District Council leave a vulnerable man sleeping rough when it should have housed him, it has now refused to properly remedy that injustice.’
She urged the council to rethink its decision and implement the recommendations, highlighting that the Ombudsman does ‘not issue further reports lightly’.
However, a council spokesperson said: ‘South Kesteven District Council has not confirmed its position regarding the Ombusdman recommendations as we have three months to respond.
‘We remain unclear as to the Ombudsman view that we have not accepted their recommendations. A decision will be made ahead of the deadline.’
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