Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s refusals to give medical priority to Mr and Mrs X’s housing application. Mr and Mrs X did not ask the Council to review the 2022 refusals at the time. With the 2023 refusals, it is appropriate to await the Council’s review of the that decision.

The complaint

1. Miss X complains for her parents Mr and Mrs X and in her own right. She complains the Council refused to give medical priority to her parents’ housing application. She believes this will cause the family to remain longer than necessary in poor conditions in their overcrowded 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. 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)
3. 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 there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating or it would be reasonable for the person to ask for an organisation review or appeal and await the outcome. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6))
4. We consider whether there was fault in the way an organisation made its decision. If there was no fault in the decision making, we cannot question the outcome. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

5. I considered information provided by the complainant and copy correspondence from the Council.
6. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

7. If the Council refuses to give medical priority to a housing application, the applicant can ask the Council to review that decision. (Housing Act 1996, s166A(9)(c))

2022 applications for medical priority

8. In 2022 Mr and Mrs X each applied for medical priority. The Council’s decision letters in May 2022 gave reasons for not giving either of them medical priority, citing the Council’s housing allocations policy and information Mr and Mrs X had supplied. So I see no fault in the decision-making.
9. Also, the decision letters gave Mr and Mrs X 21 days to use their review rights. I have seen no evidence Mr and Mrs X sought reviews of those decisions. It would have been reasonable to use the review right the law provides if either Mr or Mrs X had believed the Council’s decisions were wrong. I do not see good reason to investigate the 2022 decisions now.

2023 applications for medical priority

10. In 2023 Mr and Mrs X applied again for medical priority. The Council again decided against giving medical priority. Its letters explaining this, in January and February 2023, again told Mr and Mrs X about their review rights. Mr and Mrs X asked the Council to review one decision. When Miss X complained to us, the Council had not yet issued its review decision.
11. Any dissatisfaction with a refusal of medical priority is for the Council’s review procedure in the first instance. The Council’s review could overturn the decision if the Council sees fit. By contrast, we cannot decide whether to award somebody medical priority; we can only look at how the Council reached its decision. It is therefore appropriate for the complainants to await the review decision. So it would not be appropriate for me to make any finding on whether the Council was at fault at this stage.
12. If the review decision, when received, is unfavourable and Mr or Mrs X wants to complain about that, that would be a new complaint about a new matter.

Complaint-handling

13. Miss X also complains about how long the Council took to deal with the formal complaint about the matter. 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.

Damp and mould in current property

14. Miss X referred to damp and mould in the family’s Council home. The Council’s handling of this relates to its management of its social housing. The law prevents us considering that, as paragraph 2 explained.

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Final decision

15. We will not investigate this complaint because Mr and Mrs X did not seek Council reviews of the 2022 decisions and because it is appropriate to await the review of the 2023 decision in the first instance. As we are not investigating the substantive points of complaint, it would be disproportionate to investigate the Council’s complaint-handling.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman