The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s operation of its housing allocations scheme. There is insufficient evidence of fault which would warrant an investigation.
The complaint
Miss X complained about the Council’s failure to give priority to homeless applicants above others on the housing waiting list. She says she has been on the list for 14 months and that she is now at a lower position, even though other applicants have been rehoused in this period. She says the Council should free up empty properties more quickly than it has done and make homeless applicants a priority.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
We investigate complaints of injustice caused by ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. I have used the word fault to refer to these. We consider whether there was fault in the way an organisation made its decision. 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) We cannot investigate complaints about the provision or management of social housing by a council acting as a registered social housing provider. (Local Government Act 1974, paragraph 5A schedule 5, as amended)
How I considered this complaint
I considered the information provided by the complainant and the Council. I have also considered the Council’s housing allocations scheme.
I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
Miss X says she was in interim hotel accommodation when she was first accepted as homeless and has been in temporary accommodation for months after this. She says she was 29th from the top of the list in November 2023 and in June 2024 she was 49th on the list. She cannot understand how the priority is changing if applicants have been rehoused in the meantime.
The Council explained to Miss X that it operates a choice-based lettings scheme and that reasonable preference is required to be given to other priority groups other than homeless applicants under the Housing Act 1996. This includes applicants with medical, overcrowding and other social needs or in uninhabitable accommodation and those under-occupying social housing. There is no requirement to prioritise one preference group over another and each case has to be considered on its merits. Miss X believes there is case law to give homeless applicants priority over other reasonable preference groups but this is not the case.
Because the housing list is continuously changing and demand always outstrips the supply of vacancies, other applicants may be rehoused with higher priority if their circumstances warrant this. There is no time limit on how long someone may be in temporary accommodation, although they can challenge the suitability by way of a statutory review and an appeal to the County Court.
The Council has given Miss X a reasonable explanation of the allocations procedure and its responsibilities to all applicants. I can see no evidence of fault in the Council’s actions.
We cannot investigate how the Council manages its own empty housing stock because this is outside our jurisdiction.
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.
Final decision
We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s operation of its housing allocations scheme. There is insufficient evidence of fault which would warrant an investigation.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman