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. Mrs X complained about the Council’s failure to re-house her, even though she has been in the highest priority banding since 2023. She wants the Council to find her ground floor accommodation in her current area urgently.

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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 the information provided by the complainant and the Council’s response.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. Mrs X says the Council has failed to re-house her since she was awarded the highest priority banding for medical needs, 1-A (emergency medical), in 2023. She says she needs to be moved to ground floor accommodation urgently because she is concerned that her autistic child may jump from the balcony at her current home.
6. The Council told her that it cannot award higher priority than her current status and that she has been bidding primarily on ground floor accommodation. Her medical award does not specify ground floor and this is in high demand for applicants who for medical reasons cannot cope with stairs. Not all first-floor flats have a balcony and Mrs X’s family could cope with internal stairs so ground floor was not specified.
7. The Council says if she has had any significant changes in her medical needs she could ask for a new medical assessment if she can provide new evidence.
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. Councils have a duty to maintain a housing register and to assess applications under the allocations policy. There is no duty to re-house someone within a particular timescale provided that their priority is correctly assessed. 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. In this case only new medical circumstances would be likely to offer any change in Mrs X’s priority.

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Final decision

10. 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