When an independent panel found in favour of a disabled boy’s mother, Wandsworth Council promised to make the changes he needed at home “as a matter of urgency”. It took more than a year, on top of the two and a half years the family had already waited.
In a second case, the family of a man released from prison were told he appeared to have made himself homeless, by a council that later decided it had owed him a home since 2021.
Both families took their complaints to the final stage of the council’s own process. The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman, which anonymises everyone in its reports, has now found the council at fault in both cases. In each, it agreed with parts of the council’s own account, and still found against it.
The ombudsman does not normally look again at a children’s complaint that has been through all three of the council’s stages. The boy’s case reached it because the council had not done what it agreed at the end of them.
It told the council to apologise to both families and to pay £1,400 to the boy and his mother and £575 to the man and his relative. The council had four weeks to do it. Both deadlines passed in October.
Agreed at the final stage, then another year
In November 2022 an occupational therapist working for the council assessed the boy, who has a physical disability. The therapist set out the aids and changes to his home he needed for everyday tasks. Putting them in was the council’s job.
By March 2024, his mother says, none of it had arrived, and she complained.
Complaints about children’s services can go through three stages: the council’s own answer, an independent investigator, and finally an independent panel. She took hers through all three.
In May 2025 the panel found the council had failed to do the work. The council, it found, had taken three months to share the assessment with the family and had kept them poorly informed. She had caused some of the delay herself, the panel said, by holding up applications.
The council accepted every finding. In May 2025 it apologised and promised to put the adaptations in as a matter of urgency.
The work did not start. Because of the time that had passed since the first assessments, the council decided the boy first needed a fresh assessment. It then took six months, until the end of November 2025, to find a therapist to do it.
His mother could not check that therapist’s credentials, so she asked the council for details. There is no evidence it ever sent them, the ombudsman said, and she declined to let the therapist start. She chased the council for a replacement several times, and it found one in January 2026.
That therapist assessed the boy in February and March. By the end of June, the council told the ombudsman, the changes recommended in 2022 had been made. That was three years and seven months after the first assessment, and more than a year after the promise of urgency.
The ombudsman accepted the council’s reasons for a fresh assessment, and that his mother had turned down the first therapist. It still found that six months to find one was too long. That further delay of around a year was itself a fault, it found.
Of the urgent promise, it said: “I do not consider the Council did so.”
His mother told the ombudsman his independence and mental health had declined without the aids and adaptations he needs. Two newer items, bath rails and access to the home, were still not done when it ruled.
Told he appeared to have made himself homeless
For three years the council had housed the man in a hotel. It had accepted the legal duty a council takes on when it decides someone is homeless, eligible for help and in priority need.
In August 2024 police came to the hotel and later arrested him. The hotel ended his place, and he was later sent to prison. The council would later admit that it should have written to him then, and that failing to formally end its duty to him was an error. It did neither.
By mid-June 2025 he was out and staying with a relative. She was already pursuing a complaint about his housing, and had had to insist the council treat it as a formal complaint rather than a “service request”. Now she told it he needed somewhere to live, or he would be in breach of the terms of his release.
The council’s answer, in early July, was that he appeared to have made himself intentionally homeless. The council had no record of him being in touch since 2024, and he could apply again.
She saw what the council had missed: it had never formally ended its duty to him. She took her complaint to the final stage and said so.
At the end of July the council wrote to him ending the duty. A month later it reversed itself. Having reviewed the file, it reinstated the duty, backdated to 2021, and in October offered him a place.
The ombudsman took the council at its word. If the duty ran back to 2021, the council owed him somewhere to live from the moment his relative told it he was out. “Not doing so was fault,” the ombudsman ruled.
The ombudsman also agreed with the council’s own view that it had fallen short in handling her complaint, and with the £200 the council offered her for it.
By November, when the council offered him somewhere different, his circumstances meant he could not take it, and the council ended its duty to him that December. She told the ombudsman it had affected both their quality of life and their mental health.
In both cases the council accepted it had got things wrong only after a family member took the complaint through every stage.
The housing ruling is at least the eleventh against Wandsworth’s homelessness and rehousing service since August 2025. Earlier rulings include a man sleeping rough who waited seven weeks to be seen, and a woman left without heating who the council took four months to visit.
In this case the council told the ombudsman it had reviewed how it ends housing duties, given officers fresh guidance and written new letters. It has given the ombudsman the same assurance before. It did not respond to seven questions Putney.news sent in October about two earlier homelessness rulings.
If you are waiting for the council to act
If your child needs changes to your home because of a disability, ask the council about a Disabled Facilities Grant. It is worth up to £30,000 in England, and for a disabled child under 18 the parents’ income is not taken into account.
If the council agrees to do something at the end of a children’s services complaint and does not do it, you can go to the ombudsman. It can look at whether the council carried out the panel’s recommendations without delay.
If someone is leaving prison with nowhere to live, ask the prison or probation officer to refer them to a council housing team before release. Prisons and probation services have a legal duty to make that referral, with the person’s consent.
If the council owes you housing and you have nowhere to stay, Shelter’s free helpline is 0808 800 4444, Monday to Friday, 8am to 5pm. If any of this is affecting your mental health, Mind’s Infoline is 0300 123 3393, Monday to Friday, 9am to 6pm.
Complain to the council first. If that does not resolve it, the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman is free to use: lgo.org.uk or 0300 061 0614.
Is the council yet to do something it agreed at the end of your complaint? Get in touch.
