Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s review 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 review procedure for her housing application which she says was stressful for her and her daughter as it is the third review she has undertaken under s.166A of the Housing Act 1996.

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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)

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How I considered this complaint

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

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My assessment

5. Miss X says she has had three review of her housing application priority and that she remains dissatisfied with the assessment of her medical needs. She says the Council has made no allowance for her daughter requiring an additional bedroom for medical equipment which means she is overcrowded. She also says the Council’s own medical advisor recommended a separate bedroom but this has been disregarded.
6. The Council says that the current accommodation contains sufficient sleeping accommodation because she has a separate living room which is counted as available for use as a bedroom under the space and statutory overcrowding provisions in the Housing Act 1985.
7. The Council says she did not receive any medical points for her mental health problems and the award was only for her daughter’s disabilities. The Council says she did not qualify for additional priority because she has no history of being referred to the Community Mental Health team for her reported problems. It did not consider that he met the threshold for additional priority under the allocations scheme.
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. We recognise that the demand for social housing far outstrips the supply of properties in many areas.

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Final decision

10. We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s review 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