The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the handling of Ms X’s housing matters. It is unlikely we could find enough evidence of fault in what happened when Ms X accepted her current property (if Adur District Council was involved then). Also, the Council properly reached its recent decision not to let Ms X join the housing register.
The complaint
Ms X complains: The Council did not tell her, when she accepted the offer of her current property, that she would not be able to seek social housing back where she previously lived.
The Council refused Ms X’s recent application to join its housing register.
Ms X says this means she is experiencing difficulty living with her young children far from family support, which causes her physical problems. Her mental health has worsened.
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 or may decide not to continue with 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)) We cannot question whether an organisation’s decision is right or wrong simply because the complainant disagrees with it. We must consider whether there was fault in the way the decision was reached. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended)
How I considered this complaint
I considered information provided by the complainant.
I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
This complaint is against Adur District Council and the correspondence she has sent us is with that Council. While Adur District Council and neighbouring Worthing Borough Council share officers and service provision, they are legally separate. The Ombudsman can only consider the complaint that Ms X has made to us, which is against Adur (‘the Council’).
Ms X does not currently live in either Adur’s or Worthing’s council areas. She previously lived in Adur’s area, then in Worthing’s area. When her accommodation in Worthing was closing down, she bid on the housing register for her current property in 2020. Ms X wants to move back to Adur’s or Worthing’s area to get family support for her and her children.
Ms X’s move to her current home Ms X says when she bid for and accepted the offer of her current property, the Council did not tell her property was outside its area and if she moved there she would probably not be able to join its housing register with a view to seeking social housing in its area later. She says had she known this, she would have been less likely to move to her current home.
It is unclear if this complaint is actually about Adur District Council, since at the time of being offered her current home, Ms X was living in Worthing’s area, not Adur’s. The current complaint to the Ombudsman is about Adur. We cannot hold Adur responsible for alleged any fault of Worthing Borough Council while Ms X lived in Worthing.
In any event, even if this complaint is about Adur District Council, it is unlikely we could reach a clear enough view now about what the Council told Ms X, or should have told her, several years ago in the context of Ms X bidding for social housing. If someone is on the housing register and bids for a property, there is no actual obligation on the Council to check whether the person knows which district the property is in, or to anticipate whether the person might want to seek social housing back in the area in future and anticipate any problems with that. So it is unlikely any investigation would be able to find clear enough evidence of fault.
Ms X’s recent application to join the housing register Adur District Council refused Ms X’s application to join the housing register, saying it did not meet requirements of its housing allocations policy for applications for people living outside its area. At Ms X’s request, the Council reviewed and confirmed its decision. The evidence I have seen suggests the Council’s review decision was based on considering relevant information (its policy and the information, arguments and evidence from Ms X). The Council gave reasons for its decision. Therefore the evidence suggests the Council reached its decision properly. As paragraph 4 explained, that means I cannot criticise the decision, albeit the decision was unwelcome to Ms X and she is entitled to disagree with the Council. So we shall not investigate this point either.
Final decision
We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint because it is unlikely we could find enough evidence of fault regarding what happened when Ms X accepted her current property (if Adur District Council was involved then) and because the Council properly reached its decision not to let Ms X join the housing register.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman