Summary: We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint about the Council’s delay in assessing her housing register application and its failure to respond to her communications. Council failings did not cause a sufficient injustice to justify our involvement.

The complaint

1. Ms X complained about the Council’s delay in assessing her housing register application and its failure to respond to her communications in the meantime. She also complained she was told she needed to make a fresh application after her address changed. Ms X said the Council’s failings caused distress.

Back to top

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
• any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement.

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

Back to top

How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided by Ms X and the Council.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

Back to top

My assessment

What happened

5. Ms X applied to join the housing register in January 2025, after her relationship broke down and she was unable to afford the rent on her own. The Council did not start assessing her application until April 2025. At that point, it apologised for its delay and asked her to provide additional information.
6. In its stage 1 complaint response in late April, the Council again apologised for its delay, which it said was due to a high volume of applications. It said her application had been suspended because she had not provided evidence to show her rent was not affordable. It also noted the address on the complaint was different from the address on her application and explained that, if her address had changed, she would need to make a fresh application.
7. In its stage 2 complaint response in late June, the Council said it had closed the first application and advised Ms X to reapply the same day. It said it had recorded what had happened on its system. It wrongly signposted Ms X to the Housing Ombudsman Service (HOS) if she remained unhappy.
8. Council records seen show it subsequently explained to Ms X why she needed to make a fresh application by telephone and confirmed this by email. It provided contact details for its homelessness team and also advised her to consider private rented sector accommodation.

My assessment

9. The Council accepted a delay in assessing Ms X’s application, for which it has apologised. It could not complete its assessment until Ms X sent it all the information it asked for. By that point, she had changed address. Since housing register applications are assessed on the basis of an applicant’s current housing, it was appropriate for the Council to ask Ms X to make a fresh application.
10. Whilst I appreciate the delay and lack of communication caused Ms X some distress, there is insufficient injustice to justify further investigation. This is because the effective date of the application would have been back-dated to the date the Council had all the information it needed to complete its assessment. In addition, due to the significant shortage of social housing, Ms X will not have missed out on an offer of housing as a result of the delay.
11. It is unfortunate that Ms X had to start the process again after changing address but that was not due to Council fault.

Back to top

Final decision

12. We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint because there is insufficient injustice to justify our involvement.

Back to top

Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman