Salford City Council (24 023 464)
Category : Housing > Allocations
Decision : Closed after initial enquiries
Decision date : 30 Jun 2025
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the time it took the Council to assess a housing application. This is because there is insufficient evidence of fault by the Council causing injustice.
The complaint
- The complainant, Mr X, complains the Council did not keep to the stated timescale to process a housing application. He says the Council delayed asking for more information and says the Council does not provide accurate information about the claims process or timescales.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
- We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’, which we call ‘fault’. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint, which we call ‘injustice’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We do not start an investigation if we decide:
- there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating, or
- any fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained, or
- any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement.
(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))
How I considered this complaint
- I considered information provided by Mr X and the Council. This includes the complaint correspondence. I also considered our Assessment Code.
My assessment
- Mr X applied to join the housing register. He asked for an extra bedroom for health reasons. This meant it took the Council longer to assess the application because it had to assess if Mr X qualified for an extra bedroom.
- That said, the Council apologised to Mr X for taking too long to process his application and for not telling him sooner that he needed to provide medical evidence. The Council said it would review some of the information on its website and review the process for applying for medical priority to try to improve how it processes these applications.
- The Council checked whether the delay in processing Mr X’s application meant he lost out on an offer of accommodation. It told Mr X that, without the delay, there were 26 properties he could have applied for. The Council explained why none of the properties would have been offered to him, so the delay did not mean he lost out on an offer.
- I will not start an investigation because there is insufficient evidence of fault causing injustice. It may be that the Council could provide more information on its website about processing times. However, it has already said it will review the website, and the way it processes medical applications, and any remaining issues do not amount to fault requiring an investigation.
- In addition, there is insufficient evidence of injustice to warrant an investigation. I acknowledge Mr X may have felt a degree of frustration, and had to spend time chasing his application but, as he did not lose out on a property, the impact is not so significant that it warrants an investigation.
Final decision
- We will not investigate this complaint because there is insufficient evidence of fault causing injustice.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman