A pregnant homeless woman was forced to sleep on the hard floor of an empty flat due to multiple failings of a London council, a government watchdog has found.

The woman, who cannot be named, was left in the flat for three months, and did not have a bed until she was awarded a grant a month into the tenancy.

The council failed to comply with homelessness laws and subsequently caused her unnecessary distress and anxiety, said the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman, which investigated after receiving a complaint from the woman.

The woman had appealed to Tower Hamlets Council for help when her father gave her notice to leave the family home.

But delays in assessing her case and demands for her to provide extra evidence meant time ran out to prevent her becoming homeless.

The Stats: Homelessness in the UK Show all 10 1 /10 The Stats: Homelessness in the UK The Stats: Homelessness in the UK Sleeping rough up 165% from 2010 The total number of people counted or estimated to be sleeping rough on a single night in autumn 2018 was 4,677, up 2,909 people or 165% from the 2010 total of 1,768 Getty The Stats: Homelessness in the UK London rough sleepers up 13% The number of people sleeping rough increased by 146 or 13% in London since 2017 AFP/Getty The Stats: Homelessness in the UK London accounted for 27% of people sleeping rough in England London accounted for 27% of the total number of people sleeping rough in England. This is up from 24% of the England total in 2017 Getty The Stats: Homelessness in the UK 64% of rough sleeps UK nationals 64% were UK nationals, compared to 71% in 2017 AFP/Getty The Stats: Homelessness in the UK 14% of rough sleepers are women 14% of the people recorded sleeping rough were women, the same as in 2017 Getty The Stats: Homelessness in the UK 6% were aged 25 years or under, compared to 8% in 2017 AFP/Getty The Stats: Homelessness in the UK Thousands of families staying in temporary housing Almost 79,000 families were staying in temporary housing in the last three months of 2017 because they didn't have a permanent home, compared with 48,010 in the same period eight years before Getty The Stats: Homelessness in the UK Reduction in families living in temporary housing before Coalition government There had been a significant reduction in families living in such conditions before the Coalition government came into power, with the number having fallen by 52 per cent between 2004 and 2010 under the Labour government AFP/Getty The Stats: Homelessness in the UK Families staying in temporary has risen since But the figure has crept up in each of the past seven years, from 69,140 in the last quarter of 2015, to 75,740 in the same period in 2016 and 78,930 at the end of last year Getty The Stats: Homelessness in the UK Nearly 58,000 families accepted as homeless (2018) Nearly 58,000 families have been accepted as homeless by their local council in the past year (as of March 2018), equating to an increase of 8 per cent over the last five years Getty

The month after she approached the council for the first time, the woman found out she was pregnant and contacted it again. Instead of immediately providing her with interim accommodation, it demanded extra evidence from her.

A week later, the woman provided her 12-week scan, and she was given the unfurnished interim accommodation in another London borough the following day.

The watchdog said the council failed to take into account her medical needs and the fact that the accommodation was far from both her support network and hospital. The council was said to have refused to consider her individual needs when she continued to say her accommodation was unsuitable.

She eventually moved into private rented accommodation three months after approaching the council.

The local authority has since agreed to apologise and pay the woman £1,000 to recognise the time she spent living in unsuitable accommodation, and also agreed to consider service resources and the changes it needs to make to work in line with the law.

Ombudsman Michael King said: “In this case, because of the council’s faults, the woman was left in unsuitable temporary accommodation for three months, causing her unnecessary distress and anxiety at a time when she was most vulnerable.

“I welcome the efforts the council has made during our investigation to help the woman and hope its commitment to learn from its errors will help ensure other people are not affected in the same way in future.”

He said he had decided to issue the report in part because it highlighted to other councils the duties they have under the new homelessness prevention laws, and the steps they can take to learn from the errors highlighted.

In a separate case published by the watchdog, a young family, including a disabled child, had to leave their home following a miscalculation of their housing benefits by London Borough of Haringey.

The single-parent family had been living in privately rented accommodation, but were asked to leave by their landlord after the council incorrectly told him the family owed more than £8,000 in backdated benefits.

The ombudsman said the council had failed to calculate the mother’s benefits properly, and wrongly told the landlord she owed a significant debt, as well as not properly applying the rules that limit benefits to a family’s first two children.

A spokesperson for Tower Hamlets Council said: “We deeply regret the hardship caused in this case and we accept the findings of the ombudsman’s investigation.