Summary: The Ombudsman will not investigate Ms B’s complaint about her current living conditions. The Ombudsman cannot investigate complaints about the Council in its role of managing social housing. Further consideration of Ms B’s complaint about being overcrowded is unlikely to find fault by the Council.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I shall call Ms B, complains about the condition of her property and garden and says her family is living in overcrowded conditions. She wants the Council to move her family to three or four bedroom accommodation.

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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 cannot investigate complaints about the provision or management of social housing by a council acting as a registered social housing provider. (Local Government Act 1974, paragraph 5A schedule 5, as amended)
4. We investigate complaints of injustice caused by ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. I have used the word ‘fault’ to refer to these. We cannot question whether a council’s decision is right or wrong simply because the complainant disagrees with it. We must consider whether there was fault in the way the decision was reached. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended)
5. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We may decide not to start or continue with an investigation if we believe it is unlikely we would find fault (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

6. I have considered the information Ms B provided and the Ombudsman’s role and powers. I have considered the Council’s housing allocations scheme dated 2018 and the Council’s responses to the enquiries Ms B’s Member of Parliament raised on her behalf. I sent a draft decision to Ms B and considered the comments she made in reply before I made my final decision.

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What I found

7. Ms B has explained she lives with her three daughters in a two bedroom flat. She complains the bathroom is unventilated and there have been problems with other tenants and passers by throwing rubbish in the garden and urinating in the garden. There have been issues with leaks from other flats. Ms B says her family is overcrowded and the living conditions are affecting her children’s asthma and mental health conditions.
8. Ms B’s complaints about the condition of her property are not ones the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman can investigate. This is because the Council is acting in its capacity as a registered social housing provider and the restriction in paragraph 3 applies. Ms B could approach the Housing Ombudsman Service and ask if that organisation can investigate these parts of her complaint.
9. In response to Ms B’s complaint that her family is overcrowded, the Council has explained she is eligible for three bedrooms. But as she lives in a two-bedroom property with a living room that can be used for sleeping, Ms B would receive minimum points if she made an application to join the housing register.
10. The Council’s Housing Allocations Scheme 2018 says at section 4.4.3 that it will: ‘…assess the number of bedrooms [an applicant needs]. We will compare this with the number of rooms that are currently available for the sole use of your household and which could be used as bedrooms. We will count any rooms other than bathrooms, toilets, self-contained kitchens and utility rooms…
    
    You are eligible for 50 points if:
• Your household consists of you and one or more other people who are not your partner or spouse, and
• You have sole use of the same number of rooms which could be used as bedrooms as your assessed bed need, and
• You have no access to any additional rooms (other than bathrooms, toilets and self-contained kitchens).
11. While Ms B considers her family should be moved to a three or four bedroom property, the Ombudsman will not investigate this complaint. Further consideration of the complaint is unlikely to find fault with the way the Council has made its decisions. This is because the Council has considered Ms B’s family circumstances, her current property and its housing allocation scheme when providing advice to Ms B. The Council has also suggested other options Ms B has, including her eldest daughter applying for housing in her own right and trying to arrange a mutual transfer with another social housing tenant.

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Final decision

12. The Ombudsman will not investigate this complaint. This is because the Ombudsman cannot investigate complaints about the Council in its role of managing social housing and further consideration of a complaint about being overcrowded is unlikely to find fault by the Council.

Investigator’s final decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman