Council Faces Fresh Ombudsman Rebuke Over Homelessness Case
South Kesteven District Council has been publicly criticised by the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman after refusing to fully comply with recommendations made following a homelessness complaint.
In a further report, the Ombudsman said it remained “not satisfied” with the authority’s response after an earlier investigation found fault in the way it handled the case of a man identified as Mr B, who became homeless in 2024.
The watchdog had originally ruled in August 2025 that the council failed to provide suitable interim accommodation while assessing Mr B’s homelessness application, causing him significant distress and leaving him avoidably street homeless.
Mr B had complained that the council failed to house him while considering his application, did not provide enough support to help him secure accommodation, wrongly decided he did not have a priority need for housing, and failed to properly review that decision.
The Ombudsman found those failings worsened Mr B’s health problems, including depression, anxiety and gastro-oesophageal reflux disease (GERD), during a period of rough sleeping.
Although the council has implemented some service improvements, it has refused key recommendations aimed at remedying the personal injustice caused.
These include issuing a formal apology to Mr B, paying him £875 for the distress caused by the lack of suitable accommodation, and a further £300 to recognise the additional hardship of being unnecessarily left homeless.
The Ombudsman also wants the council to remind homelessness officers of the legal threshold for providing interim accommodation – a standard it described as intentionally low under Section 188 of the Housing Act 1996.
The dispute centres on whether the council correctly applied the ‘reason to believe’ test when assessing if Mr B may have been in priority need. The Ombudsman said the council had wrongly conflated this with the higher threshold used for determining longer-term housing duties.
The report highlighted that Mr B informed the council in February 2024 that he had been admitted to hospital and that medical staff believed stress linked to his housing situation was affecting his health. Days later, he also said a consultant had warned he could be at risk of a stroke if his circumstances continued.
The Ombudsman said there was no evidence the council reconsidered its interim accommodation duty in light of that new information.
Under the Local Government Act 1974, the council now has three months to confirm what action it will take. If it continues to reject the recommendations, the matter must be debated by the full council.
Amerdeep Clarke, Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman said: ‘The duty to provide interim accommodation exists precisely to protect people in situations like the one this man found himself in. The threshold is deliberately low, and councils must apply it correctly.
‘The council has told us the correct test was applied but was not recorded properly due to an error in writing rather than consideration. 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.
‘We do not issue further reports lightly and I would urge the council to reconsider its position and comply with our recommendations.’
Photo: Jon Tyson / Unsplash
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