Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the handling of Mr X’s housing register application and formal complaint. This is mainly because the Council has taken adequate steps to put right any injustice its faults may have caused. We also cannot achieve what Mr X wants.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains about how the Council’s handled his housing register application and his formal complaint. He states this caused distress and uncertainty.

Back to top

The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. The Ombudsman investigates complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’, which we call ‘fault’. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint, which we call ‘injustice’. We provide a free service but must use public money carefully. We do not start or may decide not to continue with an investigation if we decide any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement, or further investigation would not lead to a different outcome, or we cannot achieve the outcome someone wants. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6))
3. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate. 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)

Back to top

How I considered this complaint

4. I considered information provided by the complainant. The Council sent us copy complaint correspondence and accepted it had not acted on Mr X’s stage two complaint.
5. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

Back to top

My assessment

6. The Council accepted it did not deal properly with Mr X’s application in May and June 2021. It failed to answer Mr X’s communications and wrongly closed the application. The Council’s response to Mr X’s stage 1 complaint apologised, said the Council had reminded staff of the importance of handling communications properly and said the Council would resume considering the application. Those actions adequately remedied matters. We would be unlikely to recommend more.
7. After that, Mr X says the Council still did not deal with the question he had raised but instead told him he did not qualify for medical priority on the housing register. Mr X also reports confusing responses when he tried to make a stage two complaint. The Council did not deal with the stage 2 complaint but instead seemingly carried out a housing register review Mr X had not sought. In any event, the Council then reviewed its position and in July 2021 it accepted Mr X’s application to the housing register on medical grounds.
8. The central point here is that Mr X wanted to be on the housing register. He is now on the housing register. He had some uncertainty and frustration from May to July 2021. However, I do not consider that amounts to significant enough injustice to warrant the Ombudsman devoting time and public money to investigating or asking the Council to do more than it has already done for Mr X. Mr X asked the Council for a payment but I am not persuaded that is warranted.
9. Mr X is also dissatisfied with the Council’s handling of his formal complaint. It is not a good use of public resources to investigate complaints about complaint procedures, if we are unable to deal with the substantive issue. I shall, however, draw the Council’s attention to the failure to act on the stage 2 complaint.
10. Mr X told us he wants the Council ‘at a minimum’ to offer him a secure tenancy agreement immediately, rather than an introductory tenancy and then a flexible tenancy. The type of tenancy (if any) the Council might offer Mr X concerns the Council’s management of its social housing as a registered social housing provider. This means the restriction in paragraph 3 applies. We cannot achieve what Mr X wants, so for this reason also I shall not investigate the complaint.

Back to top

Final decision

11. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because there are not grounds to ask the Council to do more than it has already done. We cannot achieve what Mr X wants regarding a particular tenancy.

Back to top

Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman