Summary: Ms X complained the Council did not respond to her application to join its housing register. Ms X said this meant she has not been able to apply for social housing. We have found the Council at fault for delays when it received Ms X’s housing register application and for delays in complaint handling, however this has not caused Ms X significant injustice.

The complaint

1. Ms X complains the Council has not processed her application to join the housing register and did not respond to her complaint about this.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word fault to refer to these. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint. I refer to this as ‘injustice’. If there has been fault which has caused significant injustice, or that could cause injustice to others in the future we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)
3. If we are satisfied with an organisation’s actions or proposed actions, we can complete our investigation and issue a decision statement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 30(1B) and 34H(i), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

4. As part of this investigation I considered the information provided by Ms X and the Council. I sent a draft of this decision to Ms X and the Council for comments.

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What I found

Law and guidance

5. Every local housing authority must publish an allocations scheme that sets out how it prioritises applicants, and its procedures for allocating housing. All allocations must be made in strict accordance with the published scheme. (Housing Act 1996, section 166A(1) & (14))
6. An allocations scheme must give reasonable preference to applicants in the following categories:
• homeless people;
• people in insanitary, overcrowded or unsatisfactory housing;
• people who need to move on medical or welfare grounds;
• people who need to move to avoid hardship to themselves or others; (Housing Act 1996, section 166A(3))
7. Councils must notify applicants in writing of the following decisions and give reasons:
• that the applicant is not eligible for an allocation;
• that the applicant is not a qualifying person;
• a decision not to award the applicant reasonable preference because of their unacceptable behaviour.
8. The Council must also notify the applicant of the right to request a review of these decisions. (Housing Act 1996, section 166A(9))

The Council’s housing allocations scheme

9. The Council’s housing allocation scheme says the Council will not accept applications onto its housing register where it has not received the necessary supporting documentation from an applicant.
10. Where an application does not have all the necessary information and the Council cannot ask for this through other sources, it will ask the applicant for the missing information before completing the assessment of the application to join the housing register.
11. If the Council asks an applicant for information to support their housing register application and it is not received within 28 days the Council will not register the application.

What happened

12. In November 2023, Ms X applied to join the Council’s housing register.
13. Ms X said she did not hear back from the Council so made a formal complaint in mid-December 2023.
14. On 11 January 2024, the Council emailed Mrs X and asked her to provide supporting documentation so it could process her housing register application.
15. The Council responded to Ms X’s complaint on 12 January 2024. The Council recognised it had not registered Ms X’s housing register application after she sent her application form in November 2023. The Council said an officer had now registered her application but had written to Ms X to ask her for several documents to support her application.
16. In late February 2024, Ms X asked the Council to consider her complaint at the next stage.
17. In June 2024, the Council provided Ms X with its final response. The Council said there was some delay initially processing Ms X’s housing register application. The Council said it had asked Ms X to provide some documentation to support her application and had not received this from her.

Analysis

18. After Ms X applied to join the housing register she did not hear anything in response so made a complaint. It took the Council over two months to write to her and ask for the information it needed to complete its assessment of her housing register application. This was fault.
19. The Council also took a significant amount of time to respond to Ms X’s complaint at stage two of its complaints process. I cannot see any justification or reasons for the length of this delay. This was fault.
20. While the Council was at fault I do not consider this has caused Ms X significant injustice. This is because the Council asked Ms X to provide information to support her application so it could decide whether to allow her onto the housing register. Ms X has not sent this information to the Council. Therefore Ms X’s application would not have been processed until she provided the Council with the supporting information it needed.
21. In relation to the delays in complaint handling I do not consider this has caused injustice to Ms X. This is because the Council had already made Ms X aware that she needed to provide further documentation for it to process her housing register application form before these delays took place.

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Final decision

22. I have completed my investigation and found the Council was at fault but this has not caused Ms X any injustice, so no remedy is recommended.

Investigator’s decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman