Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about Ms X’s housing application. At my invitation, the Council has agreed a suitable remedy for any fault.

The complaint

1. Ms X complains the Council refused her housing application. This means Ms X cannot bid for social housing in the Council's district where she and her child will have support.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We investigate complaints of injustice caused by ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. I have used the word fault to refer to these. 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)
3. We provide a free service but must use public money carefully. We may decide not to start or continue with an investigation if we are satisfied with the actions a council has taken or proposes to take. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(7), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

4. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council’s housing allocations scheme. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code. I invited the Council to provide a remedy.

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My assessment

5. Ms X lives outside Thurrock. She has some priority on the housing register of the authority where she lives. Ms X wants to move to Thurrock where she and her child could receive support from people she knows there. She lacks such support where she lives now. Ms X also reports her current home and local area do not meet her child's needs. Thurrock Council refused Ms X's application and confirmed that refusal when it reviewed the decision.
6. There is no automatic right for someone living in one district to join a different district’s housing register. Nor is there any right to transfer priority from one council's housing register to another council's register. Each council can decide its own criteria for putting people on its housing register, including about when it will accept applications from people outside its district.
7. It is not for the Ombudsman to decide who the Council should put onto its housing register. However, in line with paragraph 2, I have considered whether the Council properly reached its decision on Ms X’s application.
8. The Council’s housing allocations scheme says an applicant must have a ‘local connection’ to get onto the housing register. The part of the local connection requirement that is relevant to Ms X’s application says qualifying applicants must have a parent, child or sibling living in the borough continuously for the last six years. However, it adds:

“Further to this, the Council reserves the right to use discretion to award a family a local connection outside the defined criteria.”

9. If we investigated Ms X’s complaint, it is likely we would find the Council at fault. This is because the sentence quoted above gives the Council discretion to depart from the stated criteria. On Ms X’s application, the Council’s initial refusal letter and review decision letter did not mention that final sentence, or any discretion, instead only referring to Ms X not having the stated relatives living in the area.
10. The review decision letter did not appear to fully consider Ms X’s grounds of appeal. The letter said Ms X had advised she did not have relatives in Thurrock due to being brought up in care. However, it did not refer to Ms X’s connected point that her friends in Thurrock are ‘like family’. That would be a significant point for someone without a family. Also, Ms X’s point was not just that she did not have family ‘in Thurrock’ as the Council said, but that she did not have a family connection anywhere and she wanted the Council to consider her connection to friends in Thurrock as being equivalent to a family connection. There is no evidence the Council considered that point or even recognised its discretion to consider it.
11. The review decision said Ms X did not need to move to the area to receive treatment or education. That was presumably a reference to paragraph 1.2.2.4 of the Council’s scheme, which gives the Council discretion to accept applicants who do not meet any local connection requirements. However, the points about treatment and education given in that section are just examples. They are not exhaustive. So, the Council’s consideration of this point does not mean it properly considered all the discretion it had about local connection.
12. For those reasons, I told the Council the information I currently had suggested the Council had not properly reached its initial and review decisions. That left Ms X with avoidable uncertainty about whether she should be on the housing register. That is an injustice.
13. We therefore asked to the Council to consider remedying the injustice caused by its actions by agreeing to resolve the complaint early.

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Agreed action

14. To its credit the Council agreed to resolve the complaint and will do the following:
1. Contact Ms X within one week of today’s date and give her four weeks to make any representations for a new review.
2. Complete the new review and write to Ms X with the result within four weeks of receiving any representations from Ms X (or within four weeks of the deadline, if Ms X makes no more representations). The new review should take account of all the information the Council has, including from Ms X, and of the Council's discretion in paragraphs 1.2.2.2 and 1.2.2.4 of the scheme. We are not suggesting what the new decision should be. That is for the Council.
3. If the new review decision is in Ms X's favour, the Council should backdate any waiting time priority on the housing register to the date it would have been if the previous review decision had been favourable. Whether the new decision is favourable or not, the Council should remind Ms X of her right to complain to the Ombudsman again.
4. Issue a briefing note to staff who deal with housing applications and reviews, reminding them of the need to consider the full extent of the Council's discretion under paragraphs 1.2.2.2 and 1.2.2.4.

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Final decision

15. We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint because the Council has agreed to resolve the complaint early by providing a proportionate remedy for the injustice caused to Ms X and improving its service for others.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman