Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s decision to reject Miss X’s homelessness application. There is insufficient evidence of fault by the Council which would warrant an investigation.

The complaint

1. Miss X complained about the Council’s decision not to accept her homelessness application. She says she will be street homeless as a result.

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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
• further investigation would not lead to a different outcome.

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

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)

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How I considered this complaint

4. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council’s response.
5. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

6. Miss X says her homeless application was rejected by the Council because it says she has not had any changes of circumstances since her previous application in 2024.
7. The Council says it placed her in interim accommodation in 2024 but she abandoned the accommodation and it closed her homeless application. She did not ask for a review or appeal at the time or complain to us as the Council advised. In December 2025 she submitted a new application. The Council says that it does not meet the requirements of the legislation and that under the statutory Code of Guidance on Homelessness it is not required to consider an application which has no change in the facts since a previous application. It is satisfied that this applies to Miss X’s latest application.
8. 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.

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Final decision

9. We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s decision to reject Miss X’s homelessness application. There is insufficient evidence of fault by the Council which would warrant an investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman