London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham (25 011 219)
Category : Housing > Allocations
Decision : Closed after initial enquiries
Decision date : 19 Jan 2026
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about how the Council responded to his complaint. This is because there is not enough evidence of fault to justify an investigation.
The complaint
- Mr X complains about the way the Council has responded to his complaint about a housing decision. He says the Council’s complaint handling has made it impossible for him to engage meaningfully with the process.
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 or continue an investigation if we decide there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating.
(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))
How I considered this complaint
- I considered information provided by the complainant.
- I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
- Mr X complained to the Council, and it issued a response to his complaint.
- Mr X complained to the Ombudsman’s office that the Council has not followed the correct complaints handling processes and it has failed to make the reasonable adjustments he needs.
- Mr X says the Council did not include relevant documents or copies of his complaint with its response. He says it addressed issues which occurred some months before the date of his complaint.
- While Mr X may have preferred the Council to respond to his complaints differently, the issues he has raised do not amount to what we would consider to be fault.
- I have not seen that Mr X made a request that his reasonable adjustments be considered before the Council responded to his complaint.
- I have seen the Council provided Mr X with a response to his complaint, explained he could ask for a stage two review of the complaint if the matter was not resolved and provided details for the Ombudsman if Mr X preferred to escalate his complaint that way.
Final decision
- We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because there is not enough evidence of fault to warrant an investigation.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman