Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s decision to remove an application from the housing transfer register. There is insufficient evidence of fault which would warrant an investigation.

The complaint

1. Mr X complained about the Council’s decision to remove his housing application from the register. He says he did not provide fraudulent NHS support documents for his application medical assessment and that his case should be re-instated.

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

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My assessment

5. Mr X submitted a medical assessment request to the Council in November 2022 in support of his housing transfer application. The Council wrote to him in January 2023 and advised that the medical request had been rejected by its medical assessor. He subsequently submitted a review request of this decision.
6. He says the review decision was delayed despite him visiting the Council on three occasions in 2023. In December he submitted a complaint about the delay. The Council wrote to him in January 2024 and told him that the NHS had confirmed in November that documents he had provided about his health were fraudulent. The review would not be undertaken because he was removed from the register under its allocations policy.
7. The Council says Mr X remains under investigation involving its housing fraud service which may result in prosecution or possession proceedings. Mr X says his email, social media and bank accounts were subject to hacking and that he was unaware of this for a year when his application was being considered. He has not said how this affected the documents submitted but the Council would have to investigate his claims if it takes further action.
8. 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. In this case the Council considered its allocations policy in relation not its actions and Mr X was allowed to progress to both stages of the complaints procedure.

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Final decision

9. We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s decision to remove an application from the housing transfer register. There is insufficient evidence of fault which would warrant an investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman