Summary: Ms X complained about the Council’s treatment of her housing application. At our invitation, the Council has agreed to reconsider the matter. That is a suitable remedy, so we will not investigate the complaint.

The complaint

1. Ms X complains about the handling of her housing application. She says this means her household remains in inadequate living conditions, with no prospect of social housing.

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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 provide a free service but must use public money carefully. We may decide not to start or continue with an investigation if we are satisfied with the actions an organisation has taken or proposes to take. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(7), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council’s housing allocation policy.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code. I invited the Council to provide a remedy.

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My assessment

5. If we investigated this complaint, it is likely we would find the Council at fault, for the reasons given below.
6. The Council took four months to decide Ms X’s first housing application.
7. A member of Ms X’s household owns a home. The Council refused the housing application saying, ‘Section 5.31 of Southwark’s allocation policy states that applicants who own their own property will not be allowed to join the housing register.’ However, the Council’s policy actually says applicants who own their own property will not be allowed to join the register, ‘Unless exceptional circumstances apply…’
8. So the Council’s decision omitted a significant relevant point. There is no evidence the Council considered whether exceptional circumstances might apply here in view of information Ms X had supplied. Therefore the Council’s decision was not properly reached. We would be likely to find that was fault, causing Ms X avoidable uncertainty about what a properly reached decision would have been.
9. The Council’s decision letter said Ms X could ask for a review. Ms X emailed the Council objecting to the decision. She emailed the complaints section, not the email address for seeking a review. Nevertheless, the correct way to deal with this was clearly the statutory review procedure for housing allocations decisions under the Housing Act 1996, section 166A(9). Instead of doing a review the Council put the matter into its complaint procedure. That was fault. This is particularly concerning as in March this year, after similar fault in another case, the Council agreed to ‘remind its complaints staff that before accepting a complaint, they should consider if the person’s concerns are better addressed through a different procedure, such as a review process.’
10. The Council’s complaint response quoted the full section of the allocations policy, including the part about exceptional circumstances. However, the Council again gave no indication of how it had considered whether exceptional circumstances existed here. Instead, the Council just said there had been no fault with its decision. Where the Council’s policy contains discretion, the Council must recognise that and must show how it has considered that discretion in each case. For the second time, the Council did not do that. We would be likely to find fault with that.
11. These seeming faults deprived Ms X of her legal review right. The complaint response was not a proper review because it did not consider the exceptional circumstances point. This leaves Ms X with missed opportunity and uncertainty.
12. After the Council’s stage 2 response, Ms X emailed the Council twice saying she wanted to reapply for housing without her application including the household member who owned a property. Instead of directing her how to reapply, the Council simply said Ms X was not eligible and it had finished dealing with the complaint. That missed the point of what Ms X was trying to do, namely, to make a new housing application. We would be likely to find fault with that, too. Had the Council responded properly here, Ms X might have made a new application sooner. It is not for me to speculate about how the Council might have decided any such application.
13. We therefore asked to the Council to consider remedying the injustice caused by its actions by agreeing to:
1. Do a proper review of the first decision within four weeks of today. The review should take account of the Council’s discretion to consider whether there are exceptional circumstances. We cannot say what decision the Council should reach, but it must do the review properly.
1. If the review decides Ms X can join the housing register, the Council should backdate Ms X’s priority to December 2023.
2. If the review decides Ms X cannot join the housing register, the Council should:
1. explain the reasons properly, including how the Council considered the exceptional circumstances point; and
2. within four weeks of the review decision, consider the further application from Ms X that she sought to make (including seeking any more information from Ms X as necessary). If that further application is accepted, the Council should backdate it to July 2024. If the further application is not accepted, the Council should explain its decision properly in writing and give Ms X the review right.
2. Remind its complaints staff again to check before accepting a complaint whether another procedure is more appropriate, such as a review, and give us evidence it has done this. I ask the Council to do this within four weeks of today’s date.

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Agreed action

14. To its credit the Council agreed to resolve the complaint. It will take the actions in paragraph 14 to put things right.

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Final decision

15. We will not investigate this complaint. This is because the Council has agreed a suitable remedy for the injustice its fault caused.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman