Summary: The Council took too long to organise the Occupational Therapist assessment. However, this did not alter the outcome of the housing application, which the Council properly considered. There was also fault in the Council’s complaint handling but again this did not alter the outcome.

The complaint

1. Mr B complains about how the Council handled his housing situation. In particular, he says:
• The Council took too long to decide Mr B’s application to join the housing register (five months from August 2022 to January 2023)
• The Council did not properly decide Mr B’s housing application. It did not consider the medical information he had submitted regarding his psychiatric illness. Its Occupational Therapist’s (OT) assessment was based on his mobility only. It took too long to advise him that he would need psychiatric supporting evidence too.
• The Council did not handle his complaint properly. It did not respond within the timescales of its policy.
2. Mr B says his mental health has deteriorated and he is off work sick, eventually he had to resign from his job.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

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 an injustice, we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)
4. 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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How I considered this complaint

5. I considered the information provided by Mr B. I considered the information provided by the Council including its file documents. I also considered the law and guidance set out below. Both parties had the opportunity to comment on a draft of this statement. I have considered all comments received before issuing this final decision statement.

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What I found

The law and the Council’s policy

6. 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))
7. 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 who need to move to avoid hardship to themselves or others;
  (Housing Act 1996, section 166A(3))
8. The Council’s housing allocations policy places those applicants eligible to join the register in three bands of priority. Relevant to this complaint, band one priority is for applicants whose current housing is having a seriously adverse effect on physical or mental health. Band two is for those applicants whose housing is having a negative impact on their health. Band three is for overcrowded applicants.

What happened

Housing application

9. Mr B applied to join the Council’s housing register in July 2022. It told him that as he had exclusive use of a room and was a single man, he was adequately housed. However, his application showed that he had medical issues that might mean that he needed to move and so the Council advised that it would assess his medical priority.
10. The Council made a referral for an OT to do this. It told him that a referral would take 3-6 months to complete. The Council also directed Mr B to online information about how it assessed health needs. This tells applicants that where there are mental health concerns, they should give supporting evidence from a mental heath specialist that shows that the current accommodation impacts on their mental health.
11. Mr B complained to the Council on 28 October and 9 December, as well as chasing it on 31 December. Mr B also says that he uploaded more medical evidence to his housing application and the Council sent him an acknowledgement of that on 8 December.
12. On 4 January 2022 and in light of Mr B’s complaints, the Council spoke to him again. It realised that he did not have sole use of the room and so it awarded him band three priority on the basis that he was overcrowded in his current property. The Council told him he had not uploaded any medical information. Mr B told the Council he had uploaded this information in December and had received an acknowledgement. Nonetheless, Mr B uploaded information from his psychiatrist on 9 January. He also told the Council the OT has only assessed his mobility which only moderately affects him, and did not tell him that he would need to supply separate evidence of his mental health.
13. In February, the Council told Mr B that it had considered the OT report and his psychiatric evidence, but it had not changed his priority as a result. The Council told Mr B he could ask it to review this decision if he did not agree. Mr B did not request a review.
14. Mr B complained to the Ombudsman, he said that the Councill should have given him band one or two priority due to his ill health.
15. However, the Council has further explained that the medical information did not result in a change to Mr B’s priority because his current accommodation met his mobility needs and the psychiatric information did not suggest that his accommodation was affecting his mental health.
16. The Ombudsman may not find fault with a council’s assessment of a housing application if it has carried this out in line with its published allocations scheme. I appreciate that Mr B had to wait five months for the Council to correctly decide his housing priority. I also note that the OT assessment took some time to complete. However, this did not impact on Mr B because the priority was not changed by the OT assessment or the psychiatrist report, but was based on overcrowding.
17. The delay in awarding the band three priority was due to a misunderstanding of Mr B's situation. I have checked the application form and correspondence with Mr B, and it seems to me that the Council made its decision that he was adequately housed based on the information it had. It had no way of knowing that he did not have sole use of his bedroom.
18. I have seen the psychiatrist’s letter and the OT report. There was no fault in how the Council considered these. Neither suggested that Mr B should move due to the impact of his accommodation on his mental or physical health.
19. Whether Mr B submitted the medical information in October or December remains disputed. The acknowledgement from the Council in October does not say what he has submitted at that time. However, I am not going to investigate this point further because it will not alter the outcome of Mr B’s housing application.
20. Overall, the Council took too long to arrange the OT assessment, but there was little impact on Mr B because the Council properly considered the housing application, and the OT assessment did not alter the outcome.

Complaint handling

21. The Council has no trace of the complaint Mr B made in October 2022. Mr B made a further complaint in December 2022. The Council says it passed this to its adult social care team to consider whether he had any care needs, but it did not respond to his complaint. Mr B complained again in January 2023, and the Council sent him a final response. It said that it had no record that Mr B had uploaded further medical information in December, and that it would write to him once it had assessed the medical information submitted in January. It also told Mr B he could complain to the Ombudsman if he remained dissatisfied.
22. The Council has acknowledged that it should have responded to his complaint made in December 2022. I also think that it is likely that Mr B made the complaint in October. He has sent me a copy of this handwritten complaint. However, the impact on Mr B is limited to frustration as the complaints process did not alter the housing priority, and I do not intend to find fault with the Council’s decision making.

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Final decision

23. I have completed my investigation. There was fault by the Council but this did not cause Mr B injustice.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman