Summary: Mr X complains the Council did not consider medical evidence he provided when deciding his priority for social housing. He also says the Council delayed carrying out a medical assessment. The Council is at fault for failing to consider Mr X’s medical evidence during an assessment. This meant the Council awarded Mr X his medical priority points five weeks late. To remedy this, the Council has changed Mr X’s medical priority date.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains the Council:
1. did not consider his son’s new medical evidence when deciding whether it should award him medical priority points;
2. did not immediately move his family to new accommodation when he was awarded medical priority;
3. delayed in sending him the outcome of an earlier medical assessment; and
4. would not nominate him to a wait list for people already in Housing Association properties.
2. Mr X says this means he is living in unsuitable accommodation that is risking his son’s health.

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What I have investigated

3. I have investigated points (a) to (c) above.

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Parts of the complaint that I did not investigate

4. I did not investigate point (d) above. This is because the Council does not have separate waiting lists for people living in Housing Association properties.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

5. 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)
6. 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)
7. We investigate complaints about councils and certain other bodies. Where an individual, organisation or private company is providing services on behalf of a council, we can investigate complaints about the actions of these providers. (Local Government Act 1974, section 25(7), as amended)
8. The Council uses a company to assess medical information from housing register applicants and advise if the person should receive medical priority points.

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How I considered this complaint

9. I have considered:
• all the information Mr X provided and discussed the complaint with him;
• the Council’s comments about the complaint and the supporting documents it provided; and
• the council policies and relevant law and guidance.
10. Mr X and the Council had an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I considered any comments received before making a final decision.

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What I found

Relevant law and guidance

Housing allocation scheme

11. The demand for social housing far outstrips the supply of properties in many areas, particularly in London. To manage the demand, 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. The Council’s scheme has four tiers. Within each tier, it uses a points system to rank applicants’ priority.
• Additional preference plus. This tier includes people who have more space than they need or meet two or more of the ‘additional preference’ categories.
• Additional preference. This includes people whose wellbeing is being ‘seriously damaged or threatened’ by their housing situation.
• Reasonable preference. People are in the reasonable preference category if they are overcrowded. People who are overcrowded get three points per bedroom they are missing. They may also have reasonable preference if the housing conditions affect their health or wellbeing to the extent they should be rehoused non-urgently. People get three points per major issue that means their health is affected. Fewer than one in ten homes go to people in this category.
• No preference. People in this group have no priority and will not be rehoused.
13. If people with the same priority points and tier bid on the same property, preference is given to the person who has been waiting the longest. If a person receives new priority points, the wait time resets to the date the Council awarded the additional points.
14. Councils cannot rehome people with medical priority immediately, they must follow the published scheme.

What happened

15. Mr X lives in a one bedroom flat. He has two children. One of his children has a medical condition which includes a supressed immune system. Mr X has been on the housing register for 10 years.
16. In February 2019, Mr X asked his MP to request the Council carry out a new assessment of his son’s condition. Mr X says the overcrowding in his property is affecting his son’s health. He wanted to know whether he could have additional priority on medical grounds.
17. The Council responded the following month to say it would arrange a review of its previous decision.
18. The Council sent Mr X the outcome of its review in late October 2019. It took 7 months to carry out the review. However, it decided Mr X’s should not have extra priority. It confirmed Mr X already had three priority points for overcrowding.
19. In December 2019, Mr X wrote to the Council and asked it to consider new information he received from his son’s consultant.
20. The company the Council uses to advise on medical priority completed its assessment in late January 2020 and said Mr X was not eligible for medical priority.
21. Mr X was dissatisfied with the outcome of the assessment and complained the following month.
22. In early March 2020, the Council responded to Mr X’s complaint. It said it had asked its medical advice company to assess the letter Mr X sent in December and found he was eligible for medical priority. It added three points to his priority, increasing it to six. It recorded the date Mr X received those points as the date of the March assessment.
23. In its response to the Ombudsman’s questions, the Council sent us a copy of Mr X’s recent bids and his position in the queue. Mr X predominately bid on ground floor flats. The Council says Mr X is unlikely to be successful in bidding for those properties because they are in high demand from people with higher priority than him. It also said that even if Mr X bid on other types of properties, he was unlikely to be successful for some time. In eight months, Mr X bid on ten properties and the closest he was to winning a property was when he was around 150th in the queue.

Findings

Medical priority points

24. The Council is at fault for failing to consider Mr X’s new medical information in its assessment in January 2020. When the Council later considered that information and awarded Mr X medical priority, it should have applied it from the date of the January assessment. This was also fault. This meant the date for Mr X’s new priority was 5 weeks later than it should have been.
25. Mr X wants the Council to move his family immediately because he now receives medical priority. The Council must allocate properties according to its published scheme. It cannot immediately move families with medical priority. The Council is not at fault.

Delay in previous assessment

26. The Council took 7 months to carry out a medical assessment in 2019. This was an unreasonable delay. However, the Council did not make any change to Mr X’s priority after the assessment. I therefore consider the delay did not cause Mr X any significant injustice.

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Agreed action

27. The Council agreed to change the date of Mr X’s medical priority to the date of the January 2020 assessment and has now done this. This is an appropriate remedy.

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Final decision

28. I have completed my investigation. I have found fault leading to personal injustice. The Council has taken action to remedy that injustice.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman