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 she should have been awarded medical priority for ground floor and larger accommodation but the Council has rejected her requests in two reviews of her case.

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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 responses. 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 her current studio flat is too small and that she needs to transfer to ground floor one-bedroomed accommodation urgently. She says she has medical conditions which require more space and that her mother sometimes needs to stay over as Ms X is her carer.
6. The Council carried out a review of her case and considered the medical evidence she provided. It’s medical assessor decided that she does not meet the threshold for additional priority. Miss X made a complaint about the outcome and the Council carried out a further review of the information which she provided to support the application. The review upheld the original decision that she did not warrant higher priority on medical grounds.
7. 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.
8. 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. I have seen no evidence of fault which would suggest that Miss X’s application should be placed in a higher priority banding.

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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