Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s consideration of Ms X’s priority date on the housing register. There is insufficient evidence of injustice to justify an investigation into the complaint.

The complaint

1. Ms X complained that the Council:

• Wrongly considered her priority date on the housing register to be March 2025 when Ms X considered it to be June 2024.
• Wrongly removed her children from her housing application so she could not bid on properties for six weeks.
• Breached the General Data Protection Regulations as it put another person’s telephone number on her housing application.

Ms X considers that the Council’s actions decreased her priority on the housing register so she could not successfully bid on properties.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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 or continue 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, or
• there is another body better placed to consider this complaint.

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided by Ms X and the Council.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. Ms X applied for the Council’s housing register in June 2024. The Council considered she qualified for the housing register due to overcrowding. It placed her in band A with a priority date of June 2024.
6. Ms X became homeless. The Council closed her housing register application due to the change in her circumstances. It then considered a new housing register application and placed her in a priority band to reflect she was homeless. The Council considered Ms X’s priority date to be March 2025 which was the date it accepted a homelessness duty.
7. The Council removed Ms X’s children from her application for a period of six weeks which prevented her from bidding for a property. The Council said Ms X did not miss an offer during this period.
8. The Council has now offered a property to Ms X.
9. We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint. Ms X considers her priority date should have been 10 months earlier than the Council consider it to be. Given the timescale, it is unlikely that we could conclude that any fault by the Council caused Ms X to wait significantly longer than she should have done for an offer of housing. It is also unlikely we could conclude the Council would have offered a property to Ms X during the period her children were not on her application. So, there is insufficient evidence of injustice to Ms X to justify an investigation of her complaint.
10. Ms X considers the Council breached the General Data Protection Regulations as it included another person’s telephone number on her application. We consider it would be reasonable for Ms X to make a complaint about this matter to the Information Commissioner as they are better placed to deal with such complaints.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman