Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council delaying in allocating a suitable property to Miss X and her family and its failure to communicate with her. This is because there is not enough evidence of fault in the Council’s decisions and the Council has already apologised for any communication problems.

The complaint

1. Miss X says the Council has not given her housing application high enough priority, has prevented her bidding on properties she thinks would have been suitable for her and has not allocated her family being allocated a suitable property.
2. Miss X also says the Council has failed to communicate with her.
3. Miss X says that she and her family are suffering a great deal of stress and their current accommodation is not suitable.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

4. We investigate 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 continue an investigation if we decide:

• there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating, or
• we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation, or
• further investigation would not lead to a different outcome,

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

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How I considered this complaint

5. I considered information provided by the complainant.
6. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

7. Miss X currently lives with her husband and two children, one boy and one girl in a two-bedroom property. Miss X’s mother is unwell and needs to live with the family due to her medical needs. The Council has given Miss X’s application band two priority. This is the highest priority the Council can give for medical need. Miss X says that her circumstances should give her more priority. However, the Council has already given the highest priority it can in the circumstances. There is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating this.
8. Miss X says she has not been able to bid on properties which she considered suitable due to the Council restricting the properties she could bid on to those it considers would meet her mother’s medical needs. The Council has explained why Miss X can only bid for certain properties based on the medical assessment and has offered to re-assess this should Miss X wish. There is not enough evidence of fault in the Council’s decision here to justify investigating.
9. Miss X says the Council failed to communicate with her regarding her housing matter. The Council have apologised for any lack of response and have explained the reason for this. This is a reasonable remedy to this point.

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Final decision

10. We will not investigate Miss X’s complaint because there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating the decisions about the housing application and we would be unlikely to recommend more than the apology the Council has already given for any communication problems.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman