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. Miss X complained about the Council’s assessment of her housing application. She says that she is in the highest priority banding but she needs to move urgently and should have been accepted for a discretionary management transfer.

Back to top

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)

Back to top

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.

Back to top

My assessment

5. Miss X says she is living in overcrowded situation and needs to move urgently. She is a social housing tenant and says the Council should approve her for a management transfer.
6. The Council says that Miss X was placed in the highest Banding of Band 1 following a review of her application in December 2024. She is eligible to bid on 4-bedroomed properties but vacancies do not occur often and they are in high demand. It does not consider her to be eligible for a discretionary management transfer because these transfers are prioritised the same as Band 1 applicants and there would be no benefit in her being placed on this list rather than the normal housing register scheme.
7. We may not find fault with a council’s assessment of a housing application or a housing applicant’s priority if it has carried this out in line with its published allocations scheme. Miss X is in the highest banding under the allocations policy and management transfers are allocations outside the normal 1996 Housing Act and are at the discretion of the social housing authority.
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.

Back to top

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.

Back to top

Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman