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 failure to give her housing application medical priority for accommodation with an additional bedroom due to her medical needs. She says it has not fairly applied its housing allocations policy and did not properly investigate her health problems.

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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 is living in accommodation which is unsuitable for her medical needs. She says she needs to be on the ground floor because of her claustrophobia in lifts and that she needs an additional bedroom because a relative provides overnight care for her. She applied for a medical review of her case in 2024.
6. The Council carried out the assessment in early 2025 and told her that she did not meet the threshold for medical priority because although she had recognised medical needs, her current housing circumstances were not found to be having a significant impact on her health. It said that she had not provided any medical evidence that she needed to be on the ground floor or could not use a lift and that her current Adult Service care plan determined that she needed only 7.5 hours care assistance per week. This would not warrant priority for an additional bedroom for a carer.
7. The Council says that she would need to apply for an Occupational Therapist Assessment of her housing for a recommendation to be made. However, this may not determine that she required an additional bedroom.
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. 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.
10. In this case the Council considered the evidence against the allocations scheme and did not award additional priority. I have found no evidence of fault in the way this was determined.

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Final decision

11. 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