Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s assessment of a housing application. There is insufficient evidence of fault which would warrant an investigation.

The complaint

1. Mrs X complained about the Council’s assessment of her hosing application. She says she needs to move to a ground floor accommodation urgently because of medical problems caused by accident injuries in the past. She says she has difficulty with the stairs in her current maisonette accommodation.

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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 how the organisation made its decision, we cannot question the outcome. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. Mrs X says she applied for rehousing because her current home is a maisonette with steps and she has difficulty using them due to accident injuries. She has recently had a baby and her health needs make carrying a pushchair up the access steps difficult. She asked to be rehoused in a ground floor property urgently.
6. The Council did not give her any priority for medical needs because they do not mee the threshold under its housing allocations policy. She asked the Council to carry out a statutory review of the assessment and provided information form medical professionals to support her case. The Council carried out a review but did not uphold her request. It says her current home is adequate for her needs and that she can manage the internal stairs and access facilities without significant difficulty.
7. The Ombudsman is not an appeal body. This means we do not take a second look at a decision to decide if it was wrong. Instead, we look at the processes an organisation followed to make its decision. If we consider it followed those processes correctly, we cannot question whether the decision was right or wrong, regardless of whether someone disagrees with the decision the organisation made.
8. The Ombudsman may not find fault with a council’s assessment of a housing application/ a housing applicant’s priority if it has carried this out in line with its published allocations scheme. We recognise that the demand for social housing far outstrips the supply of properties in many areas.

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Final decision

9. We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s assessment of a housing application. There is insufficient evidence of fault which would warrant an investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman