The complaint
Miss X complained to the Council regarding her request for a reassessment of her housing banding. She complained that the Council had repeatedly mishandled her housing case over a two year period. The Council had failed to consider key medical and safeguarding evidence and did not make enquiries with professionals despite being asked.
Miss X would like the Council to acknowledge their faults in how her case was mishandled, and correct these consequences. To backdate her Band B priority to July 2023, when the qualifying evidence was first submitted.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
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.
it would be reasonable for the person to ask for a council review or appeal.
(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B)) 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)
How I considered this complaint
I have considered information provided by the Complainant and the Council.
I have considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
In August 2025, Miss X sent the Council a letter in two parts: a request for a housing reassessment - to be awarded Band A based on exceptional circumstances, due to severe medical, welfare, and safeguarding needs and the initiation of a Stage 1 complaint. Miss X requested a review of her Band B priority and to have it backdated to 2023 when she says her medical needs first applied and how the overcrowding living situation was affecting her family.
The Council’s complaint responses to Miss X shows that it assessed her circumstances including the medical information that Miss X had provided in accordance with its policies and procedures. The Council had also signposted Miss X to its allocations policy, upon which this decision had been made stating that for housing register band purposes, having a medical condition whether physical health or mental health will be assessed on the basis of how the medical condition is impacted by the housing situation.
The Council will not backdate her application to 2023 because it says even though it asked her to update her application in April 2024 she did not provide new medical information until December 2024 which is when Band B priority was applied. The onus is on an applicant to provide information about any changes in circumstances and the effective date is when this is provided.
We will not exercise discretion to investigate the housing circumstances in 2023 because this was more than 12 months before she complained to us in 2025 and is late. The time for receiving complaints is from when someone became aware of the matter they wished to complain about, not when they complained to the Council or it issued its final response. We would expect someone to complain to us within a year, even if they were dissatisfied with the time the complaints procedure was taking. I have seen no evidence to suggest that Miss X could not have complained to us or the Council sooner.
When Miss X complained to us her application was subject to a review by the Council which is under s.166A of the Housing Act 1996 Part 6. This was to consider if her application warranted Band A under the Council’s housing allocations policy. The Ombudsman may not find fault with a council’s assessment of a housing application or a housing applicant’s priority if it has carried this out in line with its published allocations scheme. The review procedure is the correct means to challenge a council’s banding priority.
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 assessment of Miss X’s housing applciation. There is insufficient evidence of fault which would warrant an investigation.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman