Summary: Mr X complained about the way the Council dealt with his housing allocation. We find the Council at fault for incorrectly backdating Mr X’s waiting time points and for failing to carry out a review of Mr X’s medical needs. We recommend the Council apologise to Mr X, progress his application, make a payment to recognise the injustice caused and act to prevent recurrence.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains the Council has not given him the correct waiting time points or reviewed his medical needs. Mr X says that this has prevented him from having the correct points, and being in the correct priority position during the housing allocation process. He would like the Council to give him the correct waiting time points and complete a medical review.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
3. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word fault to refer to these. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint. I refer to this as ‘injustice’. If there has been fault which has caused significant injustice, or that could cause injustice to others in future, we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)
4. We can consider complaints that concern the handing of an allocation for social housing under Part 6 of the Housing Act 1996. However, we cannot investigate complaints about the provision or management of social housing by a council acting as a registered social housing provider. These are matters which fall under jurisdiction of the Housing Ombudsman. (Local Government Act 1974, paragraph 5A schedule 5, as amended)
5. We cannot investigate late complaints unless we decide there are good reasons. Late complaints are when someone takes more than 12 months to complain to us about something a council has done. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26B and 34D, as amended)
6. If we are satisfied with an organisation’s actions or proposed actions, we can complete our investigation and issue a decision statement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 30(1B) and 34H(i), as amended)

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What I have and have not investigated

7. We cannot usually investigate complaints about events that took place more than a year before the complainant contacted us. Mr X first brought his complaint to the Ombudsman in July 2023, meaning anything that took place before July 2022 is a late complaint.
8. There were delays in the Council processing Mr X’s initial housing application, which he made in 2020. He raised these issues with the Council in 2021 and again in July 2022. Mr X received a response to this complaint in August 2022. In this response, the Council upheld his complaint and asked him to make a second housing application. There is evidence that Mr X was aware of issues with his initial application in 2021. Furthermore, he has not raised this issue directly as part of this complaint. These events are out of time and I have seen no good reason to exercise discretion to investigate them.
9. Any mention of these events below is for reference only.

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How I considered this complaint

10. I spoke to Mr X’s representative about his complaint and considered information he provided. I also considered information received from the Council.

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What I found

11. Every local housing authority must publish an allocations scheme that sets out how it prioritises applicants, and its procedures for allocating housing. All allocations must be made in strict accordance with the published scheme. (Housing Act 1996, section 166A(1) & (14))
12. An allocations scheme must give reasonable preference to applicants in the following categories:
• homeless people;
• people in insanitary, overcrowded or unsatisfactory housing;
• people who need to move on medical or welfare grounds;
• people ho need to move to avoid hardship to themselves or others.
  (Housing Act 1996, section 166A(3))
13. Housing applicants can ask the council to review a wide range of decisions about their applications, including decisions about their housing priority.
14. Statutory guidance on the allocation of accommodation says:
• review procedures should be clear and fair with timescales for each stage of the process;
• there should be a timescale for requesting a review – 21 days is suggested as reasonable;
• the review should be carried out by an officer senior to the original decision maker, or by a panel not including the original decision maker;
• reviews should normally be completed within a set deadline – eight weeks is suggested as reasonable.

The Council’s Housing allocation policy

Waiting Time points

15. The Council’s policy says that for every year an individual is on the housing register they will receive ‘waiting time points’. These are calculated on the anniversary of joining the register. Individuals receive five percent of the point award that they have on each anniversary.

Medical assessment and review

16. The Council’s policy says that it will assess an individual’s application for medical priority within 21 working days of receiving their application.
17. The policy sets out a two-stage review process:
• Stage 1 review requests should be made within 21 days of a decision. The Council should provide a review response within 14 days.
• Stage 2 review requests must be made within 21 days of the Stage 1 decision being issued. A reviewing officer will provide a written decision within 56 days.

What happened

18. There were delays in the Council processing Mr X’s initial housing application, which he made in 2020. He raised these issues with the Council in 2021 and again in July 2022, when he made a formal complaint. He received a response to this complaint in August 2022. In this, the Council upheld his complaint and asked him to make a second housing application.
19. Mr X made a further application in August 2022. He listed a range of medical conditions and said he felt that using stairs to access his home was making these symptoms worse.
20. In January 2023 Mr X sent the Council a completed health and disability questionnaire and supporting medical documents. The Council acknowledge it should have treated this as a Stage 1 medical review request, but did not. The following day, the Council completed a medical assessment and decided that Mr X was not eligible for a medical priority award. There is no evidence that Mr X was informed of this decision.
21. Mr X complained to the Council in February 2023 as he felt he was eligible for waiting time points from the date of his initial application in 2020. The Council accepted there had been a problem with his application. However, it said it was unable to backdate waiting time points.
22. The Council reviewed Mr X’s medical needs in March 2023, and decided that he was not eligible for a medical priority award. It told Mr X, who then requested a Stage 1 medical review.
23. Mr X chased the outcome of the medical review in May 2023 and July 2023, at which point he complained to the Ombudsman.
24. A note on the Council’s system shows that Mr X was sent a further health and disability questionnaire in August 2023 to begin a Stage 1 medical review. In November 2023 the Council became aware that Mr X had not received this form and resent it. In December 2023 the Council spoke with Mr X and asked him, again to provide medical information. He did this is January 2024.
25. There is no evidence that, to date, a Stage 1 medical review has been carried out. The Council says it will complete the review.
26. The Council has accepted that Mr X’s waiting time points should have been calculated from the date of his original application in 2020. It says it has updated its system to reflect this.
27. The Council has confirmed that since 2020, one third of successful housing bids went to people with lower, or equal, points to Mr X. Therefore, it says that it is likely Mr X would have been successful in bidding for a one-bedroom property, had he been awarded the correct waiting time points.

Analysis

Medical assessment and review

28. The Council says that based on Mr X’s application for housing in 2022 he was not eligible for medical points. However, it accepts that when Mr X contacted it in January 2023 about his medical assessment, it should have classed this as a request for a stage 1 medical review.
29. The Council’s policy states that a stage 1 review should be completed within 14 days of a request. Statutory guidance provides a longer time frame of eight weeks for a review.
30. The evidence I have seen suggests that, up to the date Mr X complained, no medical review had been carried out. This is fault as the delay is significant and exceeds both the Council’s policy and statutory guidance.
31. I cannot say whether the outcome of a medical review would change Mr X’s priority status. It may be that following a review, the Council still considers that Mr X is not eligible for medical points. However, the delay has caused uncertainty for Mr X, which is injustice.

Waiting time points

32. The Council’s policy says that for every year an individual is on the housing list, they will receive waiting time points. This is calculated each year on the anniversary that they joined the waiting list.
33. The Council accepts there was a delay in Mr X being placed on the housing register when he applied in 2020, and that his waiting time points should have been calculated from this date. I find the Council at fault here. This error meant that Mr X missed out on successfully bidding for a property, which is injustice. Although he was eventually allocated a property without the need for waiting time points, he still suffered a loss of opportunity during the period that the points were incorrect. This is further injustice.
34. Following Mr X’s complaint to the Ombudsman, the Council allocated Mr X the correct number of waiting time points. This goes some way to remedying the injustice caused to Mr X. However, he missed several opportunities to successfully bid on properties, despite being eligible, since 2020. This uncertainty and loss of opportunity is further injustice.

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Agreed action

35. To address the injustice identified above, I recommend the Council carry out the following actions:
36. Within one month:
• Provide Mr X with a written apology for the injustice identified above.
• Pay Mr X £550 to acknowledge the distress, frustration and uncertainty caused to him by the Council’s failure to conduct a stage 1 medical review in line with its policy and statutory guidelines. This is calculated at roughly £50 per month from the date the Council should have carried out the review in January 2023 up to December 2023.
• Complete a stage 1 medical review and inform Mr X of its decision.
• Pay Mr X £1,000 to acknowledge the loss of opportunity caused to him by the Council’s failure to provide the correct waiting time points. This is calculated at roughly £500 per year from the date the Council should have allocated him the correct waiting time points in 2021, to the point that this was done in 2023.
37. Within three months:

• The Council should review its housing allocations process to ensure measures are in place for progressing medical assessments in a timely manner and ways to deal with any delays.
1. The Council should provide us with evidence it has complied with the above actions.

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Final decision

39. I find the Council at fault for failing to carry out a medical review, and for a delay in allocating Mr X the correct waiting time points. I have recommended remedies for the injustice caused to Mr X as a result.

Investigator’s final decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman