Summary: The Council is at fault as it did not deal with Ms X’s request for medical points for her housing application in December 2018. The Council is currently reviewing its decision on Ms X’s medical application so it should consider an appropriate remedy for Ms X if it awards medical points following its review. There is no evidence of fault in how the Council made direct offers of properties to Ms X.

The complaint

1. Ms X complains the Council has not dealt properly with her housing transfer application, including by not dealing with her request for medical points in December 2018 and by only considering her for direct offers within a small area. As a result, Ms X is living in unsatisfactory housing conditions for longer than necessary which is affecting her health conditions.

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What I have investigated

2. I investigated events related to the housing transfer application that Ms X knew of in the 12 months before she complained to the Ombudsman. The final section of this statement contains my reasons for not investigating the rest of the complaint.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. 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)
4. 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 an injustice, we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)
5. If we are satisfied with a council’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)
6. 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)

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How I considered this complaint

7. I have:
• Considered the complaint and the information provided by Ms X;
• Made enquiries of the Council and considered the information provided;

• Invited Ms X and the Council to comment on the draft decision. I considered any comments received before making a final decision.

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What I found

The Council’s housing allocation policy

8. 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 allocations scheme. A council’s allocations scheme must give reasonable preference to applicants in certain categories, including people in insanitary, overcrowded or unsatisfactory housing.
9. The Council’s allocation policy provides an applicant will be eligible for 600 points if they are a Council tenant and their property has been assessed by the Council as needing essential repairs which will be disruptive. The points are awarded for six months but this may be extended in exceptional cases.
10. The Council can also award medical points if an applicant’s medical condition is being caused or made worse by their housing conditions and the current property cannot be improved at a reasonable cost and rehousing is likely to significantly improve their condition. The Council aims to assess an application for medical points within 21 working days.
11. The Council’s allocation policy provides it can make direct offers in certain circumstances, including if it requires a tenant to move to enable repairs to be carried out to their current property.

What happened

12. Ms X moved to her current property via a mutual exchange in 2016. The property is in disrepair, including damp. I refer to this by way of background as the Council’s handling of Ms X’s mutual exchange and disrepair are not matters I can investigate for the reasons set out at the end of this statement.
13. Ms X applied to the housing register in 2018 to enable her to move from her current property. In December 2018, the Council considered Ms X was eligible to bid on one bedroom properties and awarded 600 essential repair points plus 30 transfer points. The Council awarded the essential repair points as her current property required repairs and it considered it would be disruptive for Ms X to remain in the property. The Council extended the award of these points in June and December 2019 and July 2020
14. Ms X also sent an email to the Council in December 2018 attaching a letter from her GP which suggested the damp and mould in Ms X’s current property may exacerbate her asthma. Ms X told the Council she was sending the letter in case it would enable medical points to be added to her application. There is no evidence to show the Council acted upon Ms X’s email and GP letter.
15. Ms X was required to bid on advertised properties but the Council agreed to make direct offers as well. The Council has said it has a pilot scheme where the head of landlord services can grant direct offers outside of the allocation policy but this is for only two areas of the borough.
16. Ms X told the Council she was looking for a property without damp and too many stairs. Emails between Ms X and officer 1, housing officer, show the Council identified a number of properties for Ms X to view during 2019. Officer 1 discounted one property as she considered it to be too dark for Ms X. Ms X declined to see another property as it was not in her preferred area. As I understand it Ms X viewed three properties but she considered them to be unsuitable for her needs.
17. The Council has said Ms X bid for 14 properties during 2019. She was shortlisted for three properties but did not view one and declined the other two after viewing. The Council has said Ms X had not made any further bids. The Council has said there have been 193 one bedroom first floor with a loft or ground floor properties let for 630 points or fewer between December 2018 and March 2020. As I understand it Ms X does not have sufficient points to successfully bid on a property in her preferred areas.
18. Ms X made a complaint to the Council in October 2019 that it had not taken sufficient action to move her to an alternative property. The Council did not uphold Ms X’s complaint at stage one. Ms X made a further complaint on a number of issues including that the Council had not acted on her GP letter in 2018. The Council refused to escalate Ms X’s complaint to stage two as it considered it had responded about her housing options and Ms X’s housing points were outside the jurisdiction of the complaints process.
19. In November 2019 the Council awarded a further 60 points to Ms X which were points to recognise the time she had been on the housing register. Ms X now has a total of 690 points.

Analysis

Request for medical points in December 2018

20. The Council is at fault as it did not deal with Ms X’s request for medical points in December 2018. The Council should have advised Ms X to make an application for medical points in response to her email attaching her GPs letter. There is no evidence to show the Council responded at all. Ms X raised the issue of medical points with officer 1 and an officer dealing with the disrepair issues in her current property in 2019. But, again, there is no evidence to show the Council properly advised Ms X of the application process. It is likely Ms X would have made an application for medical points sooner than March 2020 if the Council had properly advised her of the process.
21. But I cannot come to any view on the injustice caused to Ms X by the failure to properly advise her of how to apply for medical points. This is because I cannot know if the Council would have awarded medical points if it had properly advised Ms X on the process for applying for points and she had been able to make an application sooner. The Council has refused Ms X’s recent application for medical points but I understand she is seeking a review of this decision. If following the review, the Council considers Ms X is eligible for medical points then it should consider whether these medical points should be backdated to December 2018 when Ms X first requested them. The Council should also consider if Ms X would have had sufficient points to successfully bid on a property between December 2018 and August 2020 if the Council had properly advised Ms X in December 2018. If so, the Council should consider an appropriate remedy.
22. It is open to Ms X to make a further complaint to the Ombudsman if she is unhappy with how the Council considered the review of her request for medical points or any remedy offered by the Council.

Direct offers

23. The Council agreed to make direct offers to Ms X in addition to her bidding on properties. The Council has said direct offers were limited to two areas in accordance with its pilot arrangements. Ms X considers the Council should be making direct offers across a wider area. On balance, I do not consider the Council limiting direct offers to two areas is fault. The Council has wide discretion as to how it operates direct offers. It has explained its reasons for limiting the offers to two areas and it is within the reasonable operation of its allocations scheme. So, I cannot conclude its decision to limit direct offers to two areas is fault.
24. The evidence shows the Council actively sought to identify properties for Ms X and it arranged three viewings for Ms X. So, I am satisfied the Council has taken appropriate action to make direct offers to Ms X.

Agreed action

25. If, following its review of its decision on Ms X’s application for medical points, the Council awards medical points, it should:
1. consider if the Council should backdate those medical points to December 2018 and if so,
2. consider if Ms X would have had sufficient points to successfully bid on a property in her preferred areas. If so,
3. provide an appropriate remedy.
4. The Council should review its procedures to ensure officers recognise and appropriately respond to enquiries about making an application for medical points. The Council should inform the Ombudsman of the action taken to improve its practice in this area.
26. The Council should take the action at a) to c) within one month of its review of Ms X’s medical points. It should take the action at d) within three months of my final decision.

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Final decision

27. The Council is at fault as it did not deal with Ms X’s request for medical points for her housing application in December 2018. The Council is currently reviewing its decision on Ms X’s medical application so it should consider an appropriate remedy for Ms X if it awards medical points following its review. There is no evidence of fault in how the Council made direct offers of properties to Ms X.

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Parts of the complaint that I did not investigate

28. Ms X also complained the Council did not deal properly with her desire to move between 2016 and December 2018. She states she incurred over £8,000 of legal costs dealing with the Council about that matter.
29. Ms X complained to the Ombudsman in February 2020 so the restriction in paragraph 6 applies. Ms X has said she could not complain to us sooner as she was not aware of the Ombudsman, the Council did not refer her to its complaints procedure or the Ombudsman before 2019 and her solicitor also did not refer her to us.
30. Ms X was aware of her complaint about how the Council was dealing with her desire to move between 2016 to 2018. The Council may not have signposted her to its complaints procedure and to us at that time. But Ms X could have found out about her right to complain to the Councill and the Ombudsman as details of how to complain are easily found on the internet or from advice agencies. So I am satisfied Ms X could have reasonably found out about her right to complain before 2019, especially if the matters complained of were putting her to such expense. I am therefore not persuaded there are good reasons to exercise discretion to accept this part of the complaint late.
31. Ms X also told us about her unhappiness that the Council offered her current property given its state of disrepair, and her dissatisfacttion with the Council’s handling of the disrepair. Ms X understood the restriction described in paragraph 5 prevented us investigating those points. She complained to the Housing Ombudsman Service, a separate organisation from us, about those points. I understand the Housing Ombudsman Service is yet to consider Ms X’s complaint. It is open to Ms X to make a further complaint to us in the event the Housing Ombudsman Service upholds her complaint. We can then consider if there is any outstanding injustice to Ms X which we should remedy.
32. Ms X has also complained about the Council’s decision in August 2020 not to award medical points. I have not investigated this matter as it has arisen since Ms X complained to us and since I started my investigation. I cannot consider new matters at this stage.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman