Council failed family fleeing abuse after leaving them in unsuitable accommodation

A council has refused to fully compensate a family fleeing domestic abuse after it put them in “unsuitable” accommodation. Leicester City Council has been told it should pay compensation after it left a mother and her children living in a bed and breakfast (B&B) for 19 weeks – 13 weeks longer than the law allows, according to the local government and social care ombudsman.

However, the city council said the law is around 20-years-old and “doesn’t take into account” the national housing crisis. It said the current “lack of suitable housing” in the city is “outside of” the authority’s control, “despite its best efforts to provide more”.

In November 2022, the authority declared a housing crisis, with latest housing figures showing thousands of Leicester residents were stuck in unsuitable homes as of March this year. Many are expected to wait five or six years to move, while the number of of people in temporary accommodation is the “highest for decades” with the number of people sleeping rough in the city’s streets also rising.

The local authority did, however, agree to pay the woman £500 for the “distress caused by not responding to her concerns about the suitability of the refuge accommodation”. The mother and her children approached Leicester City Council after they were forced to flee their home and were placed in B&B accommodation before being referred to a refuge, the ombudsman has said.

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However, the mother thought the refuge was negatively impacting her children. Despite her “repeatedly” contacting the council, the authority failed to immediately respond – and when it did it told her to go back to the refuge for support, according to the ombudsman.

It took the local authority four months to “finally accept” it had a duty to house the family, the watchdog added. The council again offered B&B accommodation, in which the family stayed for 19 weeks. It then offered a one-bed home. The council acknowledged this was not suitable for the family, but on neither occasion advised the mother she could appeal the allocation through the courts, the ombudsman said.

In addition to the agreed £500, the watchdog has called on the authority to give the woman £1,300 for the “distress caused by living in unsuitable bed and breakfast accommodation for longer than they should have done”, but the council has refused. It will also not pay the £150 for each month the family remains in “unsuitable” temporary accommodation - a remedy recommended by the ombudsman.

The watchdog accused the council of being “reluctant to fully acknowledge what has gone wrong in this case” and of “not accepting the gravity of the injustice to this family” through its refusal to pay the full remedy recommended.

Ombudsman Amerdeep Somal said: “While I acknowledge the work Leicester City Council has already done to improve its support for homeless people in the city, and its acceptance of the service improvements I have recommended, I am disappointed with its reluctance to fully acknowledge what has gone wrong in this case. It is not accepting the gravity of the injustice to this family by not agreeing the pay the financial remedy I have recommended.

She added: “The law states that families should only be put in bed and breakfast accommodation as a last resort, and this should be for no longer than six weeks. This family was in bed and breakfast accommodation for 19 weeks. The family was split over two rooms, and had no access to cooking facilities which no doubt had a significant impact on their mental health.”

However, the council believes accepting this part of the remedy would be “disastrous” for local authorities up and down the country. It said there are “at least 100,000 families living in unsuitable temporary accommodation” nationally. If it paid this remedy, then, it would be “setting a precedent” that could run to millions of pounds in compensation being paid by local authorities across the country, the council said.

'We are sorry' – Deputy city mayor responds

Elly Cutkelvin, deputy city mayor for housing said: “Five years ago we had no families living in B&B accommodation in Leicester. This year – owing to successive governments’ failures to tackle the housing crisis by building more new homes – we have 171 in B&Bs and a further 365 in other temporary accommodation, including hotels and self-contained flats. I understand how distressing this must be, and the impact it will have on everyday life.

“If a precedent were set by the Ombudsman’s recommendation, we would have to pay out £220,000 in recompense – money we simply don’t have. Nationally there are at least 100,000 families living in unsuitable temporary accommodation. If all councils were required to make payments to these families, this would cost around £130 million, which would inevitably push more councils over the edge of the cliff they are already facing.

“Along with almost every other council in the country, we have limited ability to create the extra housing that would be needed to avert the need to keep families in B&B for more than six weeks, and are therefore hostage to forces beyond our control.

“We are however, taking every action open to us, and have already invested more than £350 million in new affordable housing over the last six years, delivering 1200 more homes to tackle this issue. We have approved £45 million of funding for 225 temporary accommodation units for families and individuals, and 125 property leases. And we have also invested more than £1.2 million in additional homelessness staff to support people who are in temporary accommodation or facing homelessness.

“Exposing us to paying hundreds of thousands of pounds in compensation will only serve to significantly set-back our plans to fix this wider problem. We do accept that there were some failings in our service in this case. We are sorry for this, and have apologised to the family concerned. Staff training and recruitment is under way to ensure these failings are not repeated.”