Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s assessment of Ms X’s housing application and housing priority. There is insufficient evidence of fault by the Council which would warrant an investigation. The remaining matters are either late complaints or matters for which there was an alternative statutory remedy

The complaint

1. Ms X complains the Council failed to properly assess her housing application and the impact of her disabled child’s needs. She says the Council awarded medical priority but it made no change. She says the Council, applied its allocation scheme rigidly, failed to exercise discretion or make reasonable adjustments, and failed to properly reflect safeguarding concerns. She says this affected her ability to secure suitable accommodation.

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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 and we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))
3. 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)
4. It is not a good use of public resources to investigate complaints about complaint procedures, if we are unable to deal with the substantive issue.
5. The law says we cannot normally investigate a complaint when someone could take the matter to court. However, we may decide to investigate if we consider it would be unreasonable to expect the person to go to court. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(6)(c), as amended)
6. We cannot investigate late complaints unless we decide there are good reasons. Late complaints are when someone takes more than 12 months to complain to us about something a council/care provider has done. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26B and 34D, as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

7. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
8. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

9. We will not investigate matters before January 2025. I have not seen good reasons to exercise discretion to investigate them now.
10. We will investigate matters from January 2025. Ms X complains the Council failed to properly assess her housing application. She says the Council awarded medical priority, but this made no difference to her housing priority.
11. The evidence shows the Council considered the medical information provided when making its housing priority decision and when reviewing that decision. The Council concluded the household qualified for medical reasonable preference because the accommodation was affecting the child’s health, but it decided the circumstances did not meet the higher threshold for Emergency Rehousing Status under its allocation scheme.
12. The Ombudsman is not an appeal body. This means we do not take a second look at a decision to decide if it was wrong. Instead, we look at the processes an organisation followed to make its decision. If we consider it followed those processes correctly, we cannot question whether the decision was right or wrong, regardless of whether someone disagrees with the decision the organisation made.
13. We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s assessment of Ms X’s housing application. The Council took account of relevant information and decided in line with its published policy. There is insufficient evidence of fault which would warrant an investigation.
14. Ms X is also unhappy with her temporary accommodation. However, there was a statutory review process available to challenge the suitability of that accommodation and it was reasonable for her to use that remedy. Ms X could ask the Council for a review and then appeal to court.
15. We do not normally investigate complaint handling as a standalone issue where we are not investigating the substantive complaint.

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Final decision

16. We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s assessment of Ms X’s housing application and housing priority. There is not enough evidence of fault which would warrant an investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman