A mum was left homeless for around 11 weeks after a South West London council delayed assessing her homelessness application.

Richmond Council has been told to apologise to the woman and pay her £450 after a watchdog investigation found fault in its handling of her homelessness application.

A Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman report found the woman, referred to only as Ms X, suffered 'avoidable distress' and was left homeless for around 11 weeks due to the delays.

The council originally accepted a referral from another council about Ms X's homelessness in April last year, but her application was closed after Ms X told the council she was travelling abroad in June.

Ms X's case was allocated to a new case officer at Christmas after her previous case officer left the council.

The ombudsman found no evidence the previous case officer had made any enquiries about Ms X's application.

The report said she had to chase her homelessness application through her MP before Christmas as the council had not contacted her about it.

Ms X's MP provided her with a response from the council at the end of December, which indicated it needed information about her benefits.

She provided this information on 2 January, before chasing the council on 10 and 14 January for a response.

The report said: "There was no response from the council, until 24 January, after the ombudsman started to investigate and had asked the council for an urgent update on Ms X's situation.

"The council apologised to Ms X for its late response and asked her again for information about benefits, which Ms X had already provided on 2 January. Ms X sent this information to the council a second time.

"There is no evidence the council made any enquiries about her family circumstances, or the discrepancies it said it had identified in her information, or took any action in respect of Ms X's homelessness until 24 January."

The council then accepted it had a duty to help Ms X secure suitable accommodation, and later found her temporary accommodation. 

It agreed to apologise to her and pay her £450 following the ombudsman's investigation, along with agreeing to train staff who manage homelessness applications to make sure there are no unnecessary delays in completing assessments.

A Richmond Council spokesperson said: "The council has acknowledged the faults found by the ombudsman and has put processes in place to improve assessment times."

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