Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s assessment of a housing application since 2019. We will not exercise discretion to consider events before the complaint to the Council in 2024. These matters occurred outside the normal 12-month period for investigating complaints about them. There is no evidence to suggest that Mrs X could not have complained to us sooner.

The complaint

1. Mrs X complained about the Council’s failure to amend her housing application to include medical evidence about her son which she says she submitted in 2019, but the Council did not undertake a medical assessment. She says she heard nothing from the Council about her application from 2017 and that the banding priority for her son which was increased from 2023 should be backdated to 2019.

Back to top

The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We cannot investigate late complaints unless we decide there are good reasons. Late complaints are when someone takes more than 12 months to complain to us about something a council has done. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26B and 34D, as amended)
3. 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)

Back to top

How I considered this complaint

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

Back to top

My assessment

6. Mrs X says she applied for housing in 2017 and that in the following six years to 2023 she did not receive any contact from the Council. She says she submitted information about her son’s medical condition, but nothing happened until she submitted further medical support evidence in a request for an assessment in 2023. She says the council should have carried out a medical assessment in 2019 and wants her priority backdating to that time.
7. The Council says that there is no record of any contact from her during the six-years period mentioned and that she did not make any enquiries or challenge her housing priority until 2023. She did not make a complaint until 2024 and did not complain to us until October that year.
8. If Mrs X believed the Council had failed to respond to her change in circumstances in 2019 it was reasonable for her to complain to us within 12 months. There are no good reasons to consider this now and she has not produced evidence of her contact with the Council.
9. The time for receiving complaints is from when someone became aware of the matter they wish to complain about, not when they complained to the Council or it issued its final response. We would expect someone to complain to us within a year, even if they were dissatisfied with the time the complaints procedure was taking. There is no evidence to suggest that Mrs X could not have complained to us sooner.
10. Mrs X’s application priority was revised from July 2023 when she submitted the medical form. She remains on Band B1 for a three-bedroom property which the Council says is the appropriate banding for her circumstances. We 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.
11. If Mrs X has evidence of further changes in her family circumstances she could ask for a review of her application under s.166A of the Housing Act 1996.
12. Mrs X also included complaints about the state of repair of her Council home and comments about housing tenancy services staff behaviour 7-10 years ago. We cannot investigate complaints about a social housing landlord’s management of its tenancies including repairs and the Council has already given Mrs X advice about the Housing Ombudsman service.

Back to top

Final decision

13. We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s assessment of a housing application since 2019. We will not exercise discretion to consider events before the complaint to the Council in 2024. These matters occurred outside the normal 12-month period for investigating complaints about them. There is no evidence to suggest that Mrs X could not have complained to us sooner.

Back to top

Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman