Summary: Mr B complained about the Council’s involvement in his housing situation from 2012. He considered his application to the housing register was not in the right band and he should have a higher medical priority. He said the two-bedroom flat was not suitable for his family’s needs. There was fault by the Council but it did not cause injustice to Mr B.

The complaint

1. I will call the complainant Mr B. He complained about the Council’s involvement in his housing situation from 2012. He considered his application to the housing register was not in the right band and he should have a higher medical priority. He said the two-bedroom flat was not suitable for his family’s needs.

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What I have investigated

2. I have investigated what happened since July 2019 which is the year before Mr B made a complaint to us. I explain at the end of the statement why I have limited the scope of the investigation in this way.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. 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 has done. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26B and 34D, as amended)
4. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word fault to refer to these. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint. I refer to this as ‘injustice’. If there has been fault which has caused an injustice, we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)
5. If we are satisfied with a council’s actions or proposed actions, we can complete our investigation and issue a decision statement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 30(1B) and 34H(i), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

6. I considered the complaint and documents provided by Mr B and spoke to him. I asked the Council to comment on the complaint and provide information. I sent a draft of this statement to Mr B and the Council and considered their comments.

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What I found

Summary of relevant events

7. Mr B made two applications for medical priority over the period I am considering. One was because of his son’s anxiety and the other was because of arthritis in his knee. He said this was a problem because the property is on the second floor and there is no lift. Mr B provided some medical information in support of his application based on his arthritis but no medical information for the application for his son’s anxiety.
8. The Council referred both applications to its medical advisers. On the application for Mr B’s son they said there were no “compelling indications for a change of accommodation on medical grounds” and that “the issue of overcrowding attracts its own priority”. For Mr B’s application the advisers said Mr B’s condition did not preclude the use of some stairs. And that it may be helpful to have further supporting evidence, such as corroborating medical information, if re-assessment of the case was needed. The advisers said that Mr B may wish to consider taking advice from their local occupational therapy service or obtaining a suitable report indicating the extent of his mobility impairment and if any appropriate modifications could be made to the current property. The Council repeated the adviser’s comments exactly in the decision letter to Mr B.

Analysis

9. In the period I am considering Mr B made two submissions in respect of his family’s medical needs: one for him and one in respect of his son. There is no evidence of any fault in the Council’s consideration of the application for his son.
10. In the case of the information Mr B supplied about his own needs the Council has accepted it was at fault in not telling him of his right to request a review of the decision. The Council also just repeated the wording used by its medical advisers in its decision to Mr B which suggests the Council is not making its own assessment of whether medical priority should be awarded which is also fault.
11. However, the Council has reconsidered the information Mr B presented and has confirmed its decision that no medical priority should be awarded. The Council has explained there is no evidence to suggest that Mr B’s medical conditions are being worsened by the housing situation. I do not consider there is any fault in that assessment.
12. The Council has commented that it is not the Council’s role when assessing whether medical priority should be awarded to commission occupational therapy assessments of applicants: the onus is on the applicant to supply all medical information. The key point is that the Council should have sufficient information to make a proper assessment. I am satisfied that it did in this case. But if Mr B submits new information about his, or other family members’ medical condition and how the property affects it, then the Council should consider that.
13. So I consider there was some fault by the Council but I do not consider it has affected Mr B’s position and it has not, therefore, caused him significant injustice.

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Final decision

14. There was fault by the Council but it has not caused injustice to Mr B.

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Parts of the complaint that I did not investigate

15. Mr B has referred in his complaints to the Council and to us to events going back to 2012 when he first approached the Council as homeless. We expect people to make a complaint to us within a year of them thinking there may have been some fault by the Council. I understand Mr B has been under a lot of pressure over the intervening years but I still consider it would have been possible for him to have made a complaint to us much sooner about the older matters. I am not, therefore, going to consider them further.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman