Not upheld, no recommendations

Summary

Mrs C, who is an advice worker, complained that the council had charged her client (Ms A) rent for a property that was uninhabitable. After taking on a new tenancy, Ms A had complained to the council that she had been unable to live in the property since the tenancy commenced due to water ingress and dampness. The council agreed to decant her to another property. The council investigated Ms A's complaint and agreed to a rent abatement (refund on rent due), but Ms A was unhappy that the refund was not backdated to when she said she was unable to live in the property, which was a few months before she contacted the council about this matter. When the council agreed to decant Ms A, they did not charge rent at the decant property which meant that Ms A could not claim housing benefit that she said she was due.

We considered the correspondence with the council, records of payments and the tenancy agreement as well as the council's guidance notes for rent abatement and decant procedures. We found that the council had followed their procedures and had reasonably awarded a rent abatement from when they were informed by Ms A that she was not able to live in the property until she moved into decant property which later became her permanent residency. The council also had acted within their guidelines regarding charging Ms A for the original property and not the decant and that she had been paid housing benefit due to her in line with housing benefit regulations. We did not uphold the complaints.

Summary

Mr C complained that the council seized his vehicle from his private land many years ago and arranged for it to be destroyed. He said he reported the theft of the vehicle to the police at the time but that he only recently learned, through contact with the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA), that the council had removed it. He raised concerns that they had acted illegally in doing so.

The council told Mr C that they no longer held records of events dating that far back. They confirmed this to us, advising that they only retain records for six years. We asked Mr C to provide a copy of the information from the DVLA but he did not do so. In the circumstances, we were unable to evidence what happened to Mr C's vehicle.

We noted that, under the terms of the Road Traffic Regulations Act 1984, the council have legal powers to remove vehicles from private land if they are considered to have been abandoned. They are required to take certain steps before doing so. However, as we were unable to see what, if any, actions they took in this case we did not uphold the complaint.

Summary

Mr C complained that his local council did not handle a retrospective planning application fairly or in line with their own procedures. Neighbours had demolished a boundary wall and removed hedging between their and Mr C's property. When they applied for retrospective planning permission for this, Mr C and others lodged objections, and he then complained that these were not dealt with properly. He said that none of the objectors was given the opportunity to speak at the planning committee meeting, at which permission was granted subject to some conditions. Mr C also complained that the application was not dealt with properly, including that some information was not available on the council's website, meeting papers were not published in time to give objectors time to correspond with the council, and that a council planning representative gave inaccurate, incomplete and/or misleading information to the meeting.

Our investigation included taking advice from one of our planning advisers and reviewing relevant legislation. We found that the council's planning process complied with the requirements of the legislation, and that the application had been dealt with in line with the process. On the specific issues raised by Mr C, we found that sufficient information about the application had been available to the public during the planning process. The relevant papers were published four working days before the meeting and this complied with the legislation, which requires any relevant papers to be published three full working days beforehand. The process does not allow objectors to address planning committee meetings, but we found that all the objections were included and responded to in the planning officer's report to the committee. Therefore, overall we considered that the council had processed the application in accordance with their process and the governing legislation.

Summary

Mr and Mrs C, who are council tenants, complained that the council refused to answer their complaints, that they requested urgent maintenance/repair jobs at the property but that they themselves had to pay the costs, and that the council refused to carry out other work. They also complained that the council failed to deal with a neighbour's anti-social behaviour. In addition, Mr and Mrs C were unhappy with the attitude of council staff, said that staff had been racist toward them, and were also unhappy that a member of staff taped a meeting with them. Mr and Mrs C believed that this was part of an organised council campaign against them and that the recording was authorised by senior managers.

Our investigation found that the council had responded to Mr and Mrs C's complaints. Although Mr and Mrs C did not agree with their decisions, this did not mean that the council acted improperly. We found that the council had addressed the issue of discrimination robustly, but that Mr and Mrs C had provided no evidence of discrimination, other than their dissatisfaction with the council's services. The council had tried to investigate the complaint of anti-social behaviour, but had been prevented from doing so effectively because Mr and Mrs C had refused to cooperate with the investigation.

We also found that the council had acknowledged and acted on requests for repairs, but progress had been slow because of the breakdown in their relationship with Mr and Mrs C. The council provided evidence that the works had been completed and that they had made reasonable efforts to engage with Mr and Mrs C to ensure this was done.

Finally, they had already acknowledged that it had been wrong for Mr and Mrs C to be recorded. They had apologised for this and had taken action to stop it happening again. We found no evidence that this incident was organised or approved in advance by managers, and found that the council had acted quickly to address this when Mr and Mrs C complained.

Summary

Mr C complained that the council unreasonably determined a planning application under delegated powers (where planning officers, in certain circumstances, may handle some applications), rather than referring the matter to a committee. He also complained that the planning application – which was retrospective – caused the loss of a local access route.

As part of our investigation we took independent advice from one of our planning advisers. Mr C had understood that the number of objections to the application meant that a committee would have to make the decision on it. For example, he said that his wife had been told on the phone that each person who signed a petition would count as an individual objector, yet he said a petition against the application had been classed as a single objection. The council denied having said this, and in the absence of evidence of this we could not verify what had actually been said. Although Mr C felt that enough objections were made for the matter to be considered by committee, we did not uphold his complaint as our adviser was clear that the application was handled in line with the relevant policy.

In terms of Mr C's second complaint, the adviser said that the planning officer's report had contained one apparent error but had handled the wider question of access appropriately. Although a materially significant error of fact could, potentially, have undermined the council's decision-making process, it was clear in the report that access through the site was considered. The report said that a neighbouring route provided sufficient access, while the relative weight given to factors was a matter of professional judgment, which we could not question where we saw no evidence of maladministration. In short, the adviser said that the council made a decision they were entitled to make, and viewed as a whole, we did not consider the evidence to be sufficient to call the council's wider decision-making process into question.

Summary

Mr C complained that the council unreasonably charged him for repairs after he vacated their property. When he left the property the council had sent him a bill for repairs that they said needed carried out. Mr C said he had caused some of the damage, but not other items that were listed. The council then cancelled some of the charges but said that the remaining ones stood.

Our investigation found that the council had photographic evidence of the repairs that they ultimately asked Mr C to pay for. We also found that they had clear guidance in their policy about charging for damage, and that this was in the tenancy agreement that Mr C had signed. Therefore, we did not uphold Mr C's complaints.

Summary

Mr C complained that the council had failed to consider a councillor's request that his neighbour's planning application be referred to the council's planning committee. The councillor had emailed the council to ask that they let him know when a decision was due to be made on the application so that he could ask for it to be referred to the planning committee. The council had then notified councillors that the application would be decided by a planning officer under delegated authority, unless a request to refer the application to the planning committee was received within seven days. This addressed the councillor's request. Under the council's scheme of delegation, councillors have seven days in which to request referral to the planning committee, otherwise the council issue the decision on the application. The councillor also has to prepare a statement of reasons giving the reasons why the planning committee should determine the application. No request for referral to the planning committee was received within the seven day period and the council then made a decision on the application.

We took independent advice on this case from one of our planning advisers. We found that the council had acted in line with their scheme of delegation and we did not uphold this aspect of Mr C's complaint.

Mr C also complained that the council had ignored a character appraisal for the local area (a description of the architectural and historic character and significance of the area) when they made a decision on the application. We found that the council had taken the character appraisal into account, but had found that this conflicted with national guidance, which carries more weight than local policies. We did not, therefore, uphold this complaint.

Summary

Mr C complained that the council had failed to formally inform him when a planning application was submitted for development on a neighbouring property. Mr C owned land, on which buildings relating to his business had been erected, next to the proposed development site.

The council said that as there was land near to the planning site that did not contain obvious premises, an advert was placed in the local newspaper to fulfil their obligation to provide notification of the proposed development.

We took independent advice from one of our planning advisers, and we found that the council's actions were reasonable and in line with the relevant guidance on neighbour notification.

Summary

Following previous complaints, Mrs C had continued to have concerns about how her child's primary school had dealt with new disciplinary matters and incidents of bullying. When she complained to the council, she said they had again not dealt with her complaints adequately, not ensured an impartial investigation, and not responded appropriately to her communications.

Our investigation found that the complaints had been appropriately investigated under the council's two-stage complaints handling procedure, with the school's head teacher initially responding to her complaints. When Mrs C remained dissatisfied, the council escalated her complaints to the next stage for which they had appointed an independent person, a retired schools inspector, to conduct the investigation. Mrs C had expressed concern that as the independent person had previously worked with the head teacher, they could not be impartial. We found no evidence, however, to suggest that the investigation was not conducted in an independent and impartial way.

Summary

Miss C complained to the housing association about their responses to her requests for repairs. The association investigated her complaints and advised her of their conclusions. In some cases they said their responses had been reasonable and in others they found their actions could have been quicker or more effective, and they apologised to Miss C where they felt necessary.

Miss C was dissatisfied with the association's response and complained to us. We examined the available evidence and found that, though there were areas where the responses could have been better, overall they had been reasonable.