The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the complainant’s position on the housing register. This is because there is insufficient evidence of fault by the Council.
The complaint
The complainant, whom I refer to as Mrs X, says she is statutorily overcrowded and should be in band A on the housing register. She also says she should have been in band B from an earlier date and the Council would not do an Occupational Therapy (OT) assessment.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
The Ombudsman investigates 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 an investigation if we decide there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6))
How I considered this complaint
I considered information provided by Mrs X and the Council. This includes the complaint correspondence and the allocations policy. I also considered our Assessment Code and invited Mrs X to comment on a draft of this decision.
My assessment
The policy says Council tenants qualify for band A if they are statutorily overcrowded. It is necessary to measure rooms to check if someone is statutorily overcrowded by the space standard.
Mrs X has been on the housing register since 2015. She was in band C until September 2022 when she was moved to band B due to higher medical priority. Prior to that she had been assessed for medical priority in 2018 and was awarded band C.
Mrs X complained to the Council about her banding and she asked for a visit to assess for statutory overcrowding. She asked for an OT assessment for her children.
The Council said Mrs X is in the correct band. It encouraged her to bid more frequently and said she had only placed six bids since 2015. It asked her to contact her housing officer about measuring the rooms and provided a link to the OT team. Mrs X says the link was for the adult team which is not what she needed.
I will not start an investigation because there is insufficient evidence of fault by the Council. The Council confirmed band C medical in 2018 and Mrs X did not ask for this to be reassessed until 2022. There is no suggestion of fault in the decision that Mrs X remain in band C until September 2022.
Mrs X says she is statutorily overcrowded. But, this cannot be determined until the rooms have been measured. The Council acted appropriately by asking her to approach her housing officer to arrange the measuring. Once this has been done the Council can assess if Mrs X qualifies for band A due to overcrowding.
The Council provided a link to the adult OT service. I appreciate Mrs X wanted the children’s team but she could have used the link provided to get more information about accessing the children’s team.
Final decision
We will not investigate this because there is insufficient evidence of fault by the Council.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman