Summary: We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint about the Council’s handling of her housing register application because there is insufficient evidence of fault to justify our involvement.

The complaint

1. Mr X complained about the Council’s decision she does not qualify to join its housing register. She says the Council failed to consider her disabilities when making that decision and it failed to support and safeguard a vulnerable adult. She also said it mishandled her complaint and treated her with disrespect.

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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 injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement.

(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

What happened

5. Ms X applied to join the Council’s housing register in early June 2025 but did not provide all the supporting evidence needed. The Council provided support to gather the evidence required and the evidence was submitted on 11 July 2025. On the same day, the Council assessed her application but decided she did not qualify to join its housing register because she had not met its local connection criteria as she had not lived in its area long enough. Ms X asked for a review. On review, in September 2024, the Council upheld the original decision that she did not qualify. It set out the possible exceptions to the local connection criteria and explained why they did not apply in her case.
6. Ms X made several complaints in which she provided additional information she wanted the Council to consider. She said she had moved to her current property by way of a mutual exchange, on the expectation the property could be extended, which turned out not to be the case. She complained she had been misled. The Council explained it had not been involved in the mutual exchange and she would need to raise any concerns about that process with her landlord.
7. Ms X also said she had suffered domestic abuse in her previous area. The Council made enquiries, which established she had lived in a refuge in Council B’s area, but Council B had rehoused her to a property that was considered safe. There was no evidence to show Ms X needed to move to this Council’s area because she was unsafe in her previous property and it concluded there was no basis for not applying the usual local connection rules on those grounds.
8. Because Ms X made one of the complaints by email, rather than using the Council’s online complaint form, the complaint was not registered on the Council’s complaints system until the day after it was received, which meant a delay of one day in acknowledging it. The Council apologised for any confusion caused and explained it would review its process to prevent recurrence of the issue.

My assessment

9. We are not an appeal body. It is not our role to say whether the Council’s decisions were correct. We can consider the Council’s decision-making but, unless we find fault in that process, we cannot comment on the decisions reached. Councils have wide powers to decide on their allocations scheme, but the law says they must allocate social housing in line with the published scheme.
10. The records seen show the Council considered the information and evidence Ms X provided and its allocations scheme. It considered the reasons for the mutual exchange and the domestic abuse suffered in Council B’s area. In its decisions, it explained why Ms X did not satisfy the local connection criteria and set out why the possible exceptions did not apply in her case. It made its decisions without delay once it had received all the evidence needed to make them. There is, therefore, insufficient evidence of fault in the decision-making process to justify further investigation.
11. The Council has apologised for any confusion caused by the short delay in registering one of Ms X's complaints and acknowledging it, which was appropriate. The delay would not be sufficient to warrant a formal finding of fault and there is insufficient injustice to justify us investigating further.
12. Based on the records seen, there is insufficient evidence the Council has treated Ms X with disrespect to justify investigating further.

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Final decision

13. We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint because there is insufficient evidence of fault to justify our involvement.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman