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 assessment of her housing application. She says following an unsuccessful review in July 2025 she believes the Council had not properly assessed all of her children’s medical needs. She says that she should be awarded propriety for an additional bedroom because her children need to sleep separately.

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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.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. Miss X says she is living in a 2-bedroom property but needs an additional bedroom because her three children all have medical needs which causes them to disturb their siblings at night. She asked the Council to review her housing application in April 2025 and provided medical information to support the request. The Council reviewed her case and in July told her that she did not qualify for additional bedroom priority.
6. Miss X complained to us in September because she believes that the Council had not considered the needs of all of her children. She had asked the Council for a further medical review and provided additional information prior to making her complaint. We made enquires of the Council and it has sent us confirmation that Miss X’s further review resulted in a medical assessment approval being issued for 3-bedroom need in January 2026.
7. 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.
8. We would expect someone to use the review procedure available under the Housing Act 1996, Part 6 and Miss X did this more than once in 2025. The outcome was that she was awarded an additional bedroom need property following her last review assessment.

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Final decision

9. 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