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 decision not to accept her application form a new address outside the Council’s area. She says she moved because the Council did not award her application sufficient priority for her medical needs and says that she still has family connections in its area, even though she is living in a neighbouring local authority area.

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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
• we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation, or
• further investigation would not lead to a different outcome.

(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 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 she was unable to have a high enough award for her family’s medical needs on her application with the Council. She says she was previously sharing her parents’ home and this was unsuitable for her child’s needs. The Council would not give her a higher priority for medical needs despite a review and so she moved to rented property in a neighbouring authority.
6. The Council cancelled her application when she changed address and because she is outside the borough she does not qualify for the housing register under its allocations policy. She says she is only 2.5 miles from her former home and needs to be in the area due to her child’s medical needs and local support services.
7. The Council will not consider her as a special case under its discretionary powers because she is now adequately housed in her new home and is only a short distance from her previous home which means access to her previous support is still reasonably accessible. She is not facing homelessness so her family connections do not apply as they would in a homelessness application.
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. The Ombudsman may not find fault with a council’s assessment of a housing application or 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.

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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