Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the priority the Council has given to Mr X’s bids for housing. This is because there is not enough evidence of fault in the Council’s decision making to justify an investigation.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains the Council has not given him a high enough priority banding to reflect his medical needs. He says the Council’s decision has impacted his mental and physical health.
2. Mr X is seeking reconsideration of his priority banding.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. 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 there is no worthwhile outcome achievable by our investigation.

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

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How I considered this complaint

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

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My assessment

6. Mr X is registered on the Council’s Housing Register and has been placed in the Council’s priority banding 3 for priority it will give when he places bids on properties.
7. The Council reconsidered Mr X’s need for priority and produced a Housing Needs Report in December 2024. Following this, the Council made a decision that Mr X is in the correct banding for priority and told him of this.
8. Mr X remained of the view that his needs had not been properly considered and requested a review of the Council’s decision.
9. The Council reviewed Mr X’s banding and again confirmed it considers he has been given the correct priority based on his needs.
10. The Localism Act 2011 introduced new freedoms to allow councils to better manage their waiting list and to tailor their allocation priorities to meet local needs.
11. The Ombudsman may not find fault with a council’s assessment of a housing applicant’s priority if it has carried this out in line with its published allocations scheme.
12. Our role is not to ask whether an organisation could have done things better, or whether we agree or disagree with what it did. Instead, we look at whether there was fault in how it made its decisions. If we decide there was no fault in how it did so, we cannot ask whether it should have made a particular decision or say it should have reached a different outcome.

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Final decision

13. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because there is not enough evidence of fault to warrant an investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman