Local Government

Summary

Mr C's tenant contacted him to say that he had received some advice regarding his tenancy from the council. Mr C complained to the council about the advice his tenant said he received. The council investigated Mr C's complaint. They aaccepted that the tenant had been given some poor advice and apologised for this. However, they told Mr C that there was no evidence to suggest that other aspects of advice the tenant claimed to have received, had been provided. Mr C was unhappy with this outcome and complained to our office that the council had not reasonably responded to his complaints.

We investigated and found that the council had reasonably investigated Mr C's complaints, apologised appropriately to him and taken action to correct any errors they had made. As a result, we did not uphold his complaint.

Summary

Mr C is a solicitor acting on behalf of his client (Mr A). Mr C complained about the way the council handled Mr A's request for a travel allowance for his son to attend school by car.

The journey to Mr A's son's school took an hour and fifteen minutes. The council explained that their policy stated that when the journey to school exceeded an hour, lodgings would be made available. However, they added that there had not been demand for this for a number of years and that the list of approved accommodation was probably no longer in operation. This advice led Mr A to apply for a mileage allowance. His request was refused by the council. The council were also unable to provide accommodation, and said that Mr A's request for mileage was contrary to the council's policy. The situation continued like this for almost two years, when Mr A was offered a mileage allowance.

Mr C complained that the council failed to provide lodgings for Mr A's son and delayed in dealing with his applications for lodgings and mileage allowance. He further complained about the council's complaints handling.

Our investigation found that although the council had a policy to provide accommodation in these circumstances, they did not do so. They also failed to provide a viable alternative solution until much later. It was also apparent from the available documentation that the council did not deal with the complaint in accordance with their policy as there were delays in responding. We upheld both Mr C's complaints and made recommendations.

Recommendations

We recommended that the council:

• apologise for their failure to provide lodgings;
• backdate the mileage payment;
• apologise for their delay in dealing with applications for lodgings and mileage allowance;
• apologise for their delay in responding to the complaint; and
• emphasise to those staff concerned the importance of adhering to the stated complaints policy.

Summary

Mr C was unhappy about the council's decision to withdraw his children's school transport provision. He complained about the process followed by the council in reaching this decision, and about the the council's handling of his appeal.

During our investigation we found that the council had measured the distance between pupils' homes and their schools in preparation for the introduction of a new policy on school transport. As a result of the new measurements the council decided that Mr C's children were no longer entitled to free school transport as his house was less than a mile from the school. As this was a decision they were entitled to take, and there was no evidence of anything going wrong in the taking of the decision, we did not uphold the complaint.

We also found that as Mr C had disputed the measurements, the council decided to measure again during the appeal process. Mr C thought that the council should exercise their discretion in the circumstances and provide the transport, but the further measurements showed that his home was still outside the tolerances within which they could do this. Mr C still disputes the measurements but the evidence available demonstrated that the decision on the appeal was taken after considering all available information. However, while information on the appeal process had been given to Mr C we felt that it was not clear that the committee taking the decision could seek further clarification during the appeal meeting. We made a recommendation to address this matter.

Recommendations

We recommended that the council:

• explain in the leaflet outlining the process at the education and children's sub-committee that following the closing submissions, clarification of information may be sought by the sub-committee before reaching their decision.

Summary
Mr C complained that the council had changed the process for issuing Blue European Parking Badges. He said that he had twice before used documentation from 1999 relating to his Disability Living Allowance to renew his blue badge. Because this was no longer accepted he felt this demonstrated that there had been a change about which he had not been advised. He also said that the council had stopped issuing reminders for renewals. We did not uphold the complaint as the council provided evidence showing that their policy had always been that documents in support of an application should have been issued within the previous 12 months. We also found that governmental policy suggested councils could issue reminders but were not required to do so.

Mr C also complained that his complaint about his treatment, when attending council offices, was not investigated properly. We upheld this complaint as we found that the investigation conducted was not sufficiently impartial, and did not consider Mr C’s version of events nor address the allegations made by him.

Recommendation
We recommended that the council:
• apologise to Mr C for the failings identified with the manner in which they dealt with his complaint.

Summary
Mr C, an advice worker, complained on behalf of Ms A. Ms A said that since July 2010 she had been regularly complaining about a communal leaking/dripping water tank. She said no effective repairs were carried out because of access problems to the flat above hers. The pipes froze in December 2010. This was reported but because of access problems the necessary repairs were not carried out. Mr C said that Ms A and her family continued to complain and raise their concerns but on Christmas Day 2010, the tank burst. Ms A's flat was flooded and she had to move out, first to her parents' house and then to a furnished flat provided by the council.

Although Ms A made a claim for compensation to the council's insurers, this was refused. Mr C said that the council had not acted on Ms A's complaints about the water tank, nor on her allegations that her upstairs neighbour was not living in the property. He complained that the council delayed unnecessarily in making an appropriate compensatory payment and failed to deal with his complaint in a timely manner.

As part of our investigation we considered the council's complaints file, all relevant emails and the repairs log for Ms A's flat. We also saw a transcript of calls to the council's customer care centre, and the council's complaints policy. We found that there was no record of all the calls alleged to have been made about this. We did, however, find that repair requests made were attended to. The documents also showed that the council had looked into Ms A's concerns that her upstairs neighbour had abandoned the property, but found no proof to substantiate this. However, we found that the council had not made a compensatory payment that Ms A was due in accordance with their usual practice. We also found that they delayed in dealing with Mr C's complaint.

Recommendations
We recommended that the council:
• apologise to Ms A for the delay in making her compensation payment; and
• the chief executive emphasise to all relevant staff the importance of responding to complaints and complainants in a timely manner and, where necessary, providing appropriate updates.

Summary
Mr C lives in a tenement flat. He complained about procedures adopted by the council in connection with a fresh application for a Housing in Multiple Occupation licence for the flat immediately above his own.

The complaint had eight aspects, including that the council delayed unreasonably in replying to Mr C's query about the applicant's display of a site notice and failed to inform him of an available right of appeal to the sheriff.

We upheld these two complaints, as our investigation found that the council failed both to respond to Mr C's query and to properly advise him about the availability of appeal. We did not find any evidence that anything had been handled incorrectly in respect of the other six points.

Recommendation
We recommended that the council:
• review their notes of guidance to applicants cited to attend sub-committee hearings on Housing in Multiple Occupation licence applications to include a warning that failure to attend might have important consequences in respect of making a valid appeal to the sheriff.

Summary
Mr C complained that the council had not stored his belongings safely while he was in prison. He had been living in temporary accommodation before beginning his prison sentence in December 2010. His belongings were bagged and tagged by a removals contractor and placed in a council owned storage facility.

When Mr C came to collect them in June 2011, he complained that some of his personal items were missing. He provided lists of items to the council. The council’s position was that the belongings bagged and tagged had not been touched or moved during the time in storage. However, at that time the council did not keep inventories of belongings kept in storage. Since October 2011, as a result of Mr C's complaint, they have requested copies of inventories prepared by the removals contractor. However, we found that this does not include a fully itemised inventory.

We upheld Mr C’s complaint as we found the current system meant the council could not provide evidence of what exactly they were storing and for whom.

Recommendations
We recommended that the council:
• provide a full apology to Mr C for the failings identified;
• consider Mr C's complaint as a claim via the council’s insurers; and
• provide evidence to the Ombudsman that the council ensure they take itemised inventories of the belongings which they accept for storage in their facilities.

Summary
Mr C and his wife own several properties. He said that they had voluntarily registered them with all the appropriate local authorities when legislation to register private landlords was first introduced. While fully intending to re-register with the council, they failed to do so, and were charged a late application fee. The guidance says that a late application fee can only be applied after two requests for an application have been issued. Mr C was unhappy that the council relied on two email reminders, which he said were not received. He believed the late fee charge should be cancelled.

We did not uphold Mr C's complaints. Our investigation found that local authorities may interpret the legislation and implement the Private Landlord Registration scheme as they see fit. There is no requirement on them to remind landlords to re-register. The scheme is run as an online system and requires landlords to provide an email address when they register. In this instance, the council chose to communicate with landlords using the email address that they provided when they registered. This is a discretionary decision that the council were entitled to make, and we found no evidence of anything going wrong in this process. In relation to Mr C's assertion that the emails were sent to the wrong address, we found that they were sent to the addresses he and his wife had provided.

Summary
Mrs C complained about the council's handling of a planning application for an extension to a neighbouring property. In particular, she said that the council had failed to take into account her concerns about loss of privacy and traffic implications.

During our investigation we found that the council had in fact taken into account Mrs C's concerns. We were also satisfied that they had followed the relevant process and acted appropriately.

Summary
Ms C, an advocacy worker, complained to us on behalf of Mr A. Mr A was concerned that, after he moved to a new house, disability access was removed from the property where he used to live and he could no longer visit the person who still lived there. Mr A was unhappy that the council decided not to recommend that the disabled access be reinstated. We did not, however, find that the council had done anything wrong in reaching this decision, and we also considered that they had taken his human rights into account when doing so.

Ms C also complained about the council's handling of her representations and their failure to initially recognise her as Mr A's advocate. We found that there had been failures in the handling of her correspondence for which the council had apologised. The council also apologised for failing to recognise her as Mr A's advocate and had taken action to ensure that, where someone is representing a third party, this is dealt with properly in the future. As they had taken action to address their failures, we did not make any recommendations.