Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s assessment of a housing application. There is insufficient evidence of fault which would warrant an investigation.

The complaint

1. Mrs X complained about the Council’s assessment of her housing application. She says she should be given higher priority due to her and her husband’s medical conditions and that she will be facing homelessness when her current tenancy agreement comes to an end.

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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, or
• we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation, or
• further investigation would not lead to a different outcome.

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

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered the information provided by the complainant and the Council’s response. I have also considered the Council’s housing allocations policy.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. Mrs X says her housing application should receive higher priority than her current banding because she submitted evidence about her and her husband’s medical conditions. She says the Council did not give proper consideration to the evidence and that she is also likely to become homeless when her current tenancy agreement ends.
6. The Council considered the evidence which Mrs X provided and referred to the documents in detail when it reviewed her case. It did not consider that the evidence provided sufficient connection to her current housing situation and was a record of symptoms and diagnoses going back over 15 years and at different addresses. The Housing Allocations Policy requires detail of how an applicant’s current housing is made unsuitable by medical considerations.
7. Mrs X provided details of comparable Ombudsman decisions where councils were criticised for what she believes was similar treatment to her own case. The Council disagrees that the cases are comparable. I have read the two numbered cases which Mrs X has referred to and there is insufficient similarity to say that the Council has failed to assess her application correctly.
8. Mrs X also complained that the Council has not accepted her situation as being threatened with homelessness because her current tenancy is due to end in the near future and it has not been renewed. The Council says she has not received a notice from her landlord and the fixed term tenancy has not ended. If her tenancy is not renewed and the landlord serves a notice to quit the Council will open a homelessness application and provides the necessary advice.

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.

The Council has reviewed Mrs X’s application and referred to the evidence she provided. It does not believe that she meets the threshold for medical priority under its allocations policy. Mrs X has sought an assessment from the County Council’s occupational therapy service and if that Council recommends accommodation for identified medical needs then she can ask the Council for a new priority review based on the new medical evidence.

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Final decision

9. We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s assessment of a housing application. There is insufficient evidence of fault which would warrant an investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman