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 failure to give her housing application sufficient additional priority to recognise the problems she has with transportation to employment and family connections in her area.

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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 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 needs to move to a town where she and her partner can more easily access employment and family connections without having to use public transport which is inconvenient and incompatible with shift working. She also says her current home is too small and she needs 2-bedroom accommodation because her working patterns are different from those of her partner.
6. The Council told her that her application is correctly assessed as bronze band. Miss X asked for a review of her application and the Council put her case before a panel to consider if she warranted additional hardship priority.
7. The panel concluded that her banding was correct for her needs and that she did not meet the threshold for hardship priority which is based on medical or social needs. It considered that she does not require an additional bedroom and is not overcrowded in her current social housing home.
8. 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. I have seen no evidence of fault which would suggest that the Council has not properly considered Miss X’s application.

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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