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. Ms X complained about the Council’s assessment of her housing application. She says the Council confused medical priority of her grandson who lives with her as priority for her son’s application which he made in his own right. When the Council allocated the priority to her application it did not backdate it to when the her own medical priority application was first submitted.

Back to top

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)

Back to top

How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council. I have also considered the Council’s housing allocations policy.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

Back to top

My assessment

5. Ms X says she should have her housing application medical priority backdated to 2022 when she applied on these grounds for a move to a bigger council property. She says the Council confused her son’s application with her own and gave medical priority based on her grandson’s condition not her son’s separate application. When Ms X complained to us in May 2024 the Council had not responded or reviewed her application as she had requested.
6. The Council sent a review of her complaint in July and agreed that it would award medical priority for her grandson on her application from when she was documented as his primary carer. It would not backdate it to 2022 as she requested because her own medical priority assessment from that time had been unsuccessful.
7. A further review requested by Ms X did not change the Council’s view on her application. It says she is in the correct banding for her circumstances and there are currently 1350 other applicants on the same banding for 3-bedroom accommodation so it will still be some time before she is likely to bid successfully.
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 process involved consideration of the housing application against the allocations policy.
9. 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.

Back to top

Final decision

10. 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.

Back to top

Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman