Summary: The Council was at fault because it did not accept the complainant’s formal request for it to review his priority on the housing register, and then significantly delayed completing the review once it had identified this error. However, we are satisfied these faults did not cause an injustice. We have therefore completed our investigation.

The complaint

1. I will refer to the complainant as Mr B.
2. Mr B complains the Council has not given him adequate priority on its housing register. He says he suffers a debilitating physical condition, causing mobility problems, and that the Council should urgently rehouse him because of the unsuitability of his current property.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word fault to refer to these. If we are satisfied with an organisation’s actions or proposed actions, we can complete our investigation and issue a decision statement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 30(1B) and s34H(1), as amended)
4. 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

5. I considered evidence provided by Mr B and the Council as well as relevant law, policy and guidance.
6. I also shared a draft copy of this decision with each party for their comments.

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What I found

7. Mr B is a council tenant and lives in a property with external steps. Several years ago he developed a medical condition which limits his mobility, and his doctor recommended he move to a property without stairs to avoid exacerbating it.
8. For this reason, Mr B applied to join the Council’s housing register. The Council accepted Mr B’s application and placed him in priority band C, which is for applicants with an ‘identified housing need’. For an applicant in this band, the average waiting period for a property of the size needed by Mr B is over five years.
9. In December 2024, and again in October 2025, Mr B asked the Council to review its decision, because he did not feel it reflected the urgency of his need for rehousing. In October 2025, the Council sent an email to Mr B, explaining it had reviewed his banding, but was satisfied it remained appropriate. Following this, in November, Mr B referred his complaint to the Ombudsman.

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Legislative background

10. Every local housing authority must publish an allocations scheme that sets out how it prioritises applicants, and its procedures for allocating housing. All allocations must be made in strict accordance with the published scheme. (Housing Act 1996, section 166A(1) & (14))
11. An allocations scheme must give reasonable preference to applicants in the following categories:

• homeless people;
• people in insanitary, overcrowded or unsatisfactory housing;
• people who need to move on medical or welfare grounds;
• people who need to move to avoid hardship to themselves or others;
  (Housing Act 1996, section 166A(3))

12. Housing applicants can ask the council to review a wide range of decisions about their applications, including decisions about their housing priority. Statutory guidance on the allocation of accommodation says:

• review procedures should be clear and fair with timescales for each stage of the process
• there should be a timescale for requesting a review – 21 days is suggested as reasonable;
• the review should be carried out by an officer senior to the original decision maker, or by a panel not including the original decision maker;
• reviews should normally be completed within a set deadline – eight weeks is suggested as reasonable.

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Analysis

13. In his complaint to the Ombudsman, Mr B said the Council had made an incorrect decision on his banding, by not giving enough weight to his medical condition and its impact.
14. The role of the Ombudsman is to review the way councils have made their decisions. We can criticise a council if we find flaws in the procedure it has followed when making a decision, but we cannot make the decision on the council’s behalf. We do not provide complainants with a right of appeal.
15. It is not for me, therefore, to reassess Mr B’s housing register application and make my own decision what his banding should be.
16. Mr B did have a formal right to request a review of the Council’s decision about his banding. I have not seen the request he made in December 2024, or the outcome, so I cannot comment on this; but, in response to our initial enquiries, the Council has accepted it wrongly dealt with the October 2025 review request informally, when it should have done so under the formal process set out in law.
17. The Council then agreed to complete a formal review in February 2026, but did not do so until August. The outcome of the review was that the Council again maintained its decision that band C was appropriate for Mr B.
18. I am satisfied the Council was at fault here on two points, therefore – first, in its failure to deal with Mr B’s review request properly when he made it, and second, in the extended delay in completing the review, once it had identified a need to do so.
19. However, I am also satisfied these faults did not cause Mr B an injustice. As the Council’s has upheld its original decision, it has had no material effect on Mr B’s substantive position. And there is no suggestion Mr B was aware the Council had not dealt with his review properly, because this was not the complaint he made to the Ombudsman, so I do not consider the delay can be said to have caused him any general frustration or distress either.
20. I therefore do not consider there is any further action for the Council to take to resolve this matter.

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Decision

21. I find fault not causing injustice.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman