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. Miss X complained about the Council’s decision to remove her application from the housing register when it investigated her conduct of previous tenancies. She says the Council acted unreasonably and that she has been slandered by false claims about her.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

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

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

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My assessment

4. Miss X was on the Council’s housing register in December 2023 when it carried out an investigation into her previous tenancies which is a requirement of the allocations policy before any offers can be made. The Council told her it was cancelling her application because her previous tenancy conduct made her ineligible. It said references from her previous landlords confirmed she had a history of serious tenancy breaches and that she still owed thousands of pounds in rent arrears and recharges for damage.
5. Miss X disputed the Council’s evidence and said she has never been convicted or arrested for any crimes at her previous addresses. The Council told her it does not require criminal evidence and that the allocations policy only refers to serious and deliberate breaches of a social or private tenancy in the past five years.
6. Miss X submitted a review request of the decision which was completed in March 2024. The Council did not uphold her challenge to the decision and she remains excluded from the register. She claims that the Council slandered her by sending her the responses from her previous private and social landlords.
7. We cannot investigate complaints about defamation such as slander and libel. These are legal torts and civil matters can only be determined by the courts.
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.
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.

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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.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman