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. Mr X complained about the Council’s assessment of his housing application. He says he lives in a council property with three flights of stairs and believes his family’s medical needs should make them eligible for medical priority.

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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 the 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. Mr X says the Council has not given his housing application sufficient priority for him to bid successfully on a three-bedroomed property. He lives in a Council social-rented flat which has three flights of stairs. He says he and his wife have medical needs which makes the access to their home difficult and they are overcrowded.
6. The Council carried out a medical assessment in 2023 and a further one in 2024 when Mr X submitted new evidence. It says that he does not meet the threshold for medical priority because he and his wife do not qualify for the mobility elements of Personal Independence payment from the Department for Work and Pensions and he is eligible to bid on properties with stairs because he is able to manage them. The Council has awarded 100 points for overcrowding in his home.
7. I have seen no evidence of fault which would suggest that Mr X should be placed in a higher banding. The Council has made two assessments of medical needs and concluded that the health issues are not sufficiently affected by the family’s current housing conditions to meet the medical priority threshold.
8. 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

9. 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