Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the complainant’s priority on the housing register. This is because there is insufficient evidence of injustice.

The complaint

1. The complainant, Mrs X, complains about the way the Council reassessed her housing application in relation to medical priority. She wants the Council to re-house her.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’, which we call ‘fault’. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint, which we call ‘injustice’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We do not start an investigation if we decide:

• there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating, or
• any fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained, or
• any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement.

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided by Mrs X and the Council. This includes information about the banding. I also considered our Assessment Code.

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My assessment

4. Mrs X has been on the housing register for many years and needs a larger home. In November 2022 she asked the Council to increase her medical priority. The Council reviewed her application and decided to remove the medical priority and move the application down to band two. It took the Council about a year to make this decision.
5. Mrs X asked the Council to review the decision. On review, the Council reinstated band one on medical grounds but there was a delay in implementing this decision.
6. The Council apologised for the delay in implementing the move back to band one. It established that while Mrs X was in band two, she applied for two houses and neither would have been offered to her. The Council explained it would not have offered these properties even if she had remained in band one.
7. There was some delay by the Council; it delayed carrying out the initial review and delayed implementing the move back to band one after the second review. I appreciate the delays may have caused stress and frustration, but as the delays did not cause Mrs X to lose out on a property there is not enough evidence of injustice to require an investigation.
8. I would add that although the first decision was overturned, that is not a reason to start an investigation. This is because the correct way to challenge a decision is to use the review process and Mrs X did this successfully.
9. Mrs X has explained why she needs to move and the negative impact of her current home. But, we are not an appeal body and have no power to change Mrs X’s banding or tell the Council it must re-house her. The Council can only offer alternative accommodation if Mrs X makes a successful bid; we cannot ask the Council to re-house Mrs X outside the process set out in the allocations policy.

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Final decision

10. We will not investigate this complaint because there is insufficient evidence of injustice.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman