Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about Ms X’s bidding on the Council housing register. This is because there is not enough evidence of injustice to justify further investigation.

The complaint

1. Ms X complains the Council failed to allocate her household a property despite her coming in first place when bidding for the property.
2. Ms X said as a result of the Council’s actions she has lived for longer in private rented accommodation than she should have and wants the Council to make her an offer of a similar property.

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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 injustice to justify investigating, or if we are satisfied with the actions an organisation has taken or proposes to take. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B)) (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(7), as amended)

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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. Ms X came in first place when bidding for a property on the Council’s choice-based lettings site. The Council withdrew the property several days later as the property was uploaded to the site in error and was not actually available to applicants through the bidding process. A Council officer contacted Ms X to explain the error not long afterwards.
7. Ms X complained to the Council and said she wanted an opportunity to view the property or wanted to be offered a like-for-like property.
8. The Council significantly delayed responding to her complaints about this. However when it did, it carried out a thorough investigation, confirmed the property had been uploaded in error, apologized for the inconvenience caused and checked whether Ms X had missed out on any other properties in that bidding cycle. The Council confirmed she had not missed out on any other properties where she would have been in first place, as these all went to applicants with higher priority banding.
9. The Council’s error regarding the property did not cause enough injustice to Ms X to justify further investigation. We will therefore not investigate this part of the complaint. The Council’s delayed complaint handling did cause injustice to Ms X but the Council has remedied this appropriately with an apology and by carrying out a thorough investigation into her complaint, including establishing whether she missed out on any properties in that time. Therefore this part of the complaint also does not warrant further investigation.

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Final decision

10. We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint because there is insufficient evidence of injustice caused and where injustice has been caused, the Council has already taken appropriate action.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman