The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s assessment of Miss X’s housing application. There is insufficient evidence of injustice caused by fault which would warrant an investigation.
The complaint
Miss X complained about the Council changing her housing priority from 2-bedroom need to 1-bedroom after it decided that her daughter did not qualify as being resident as a member of her household. She says the Council should re-instate its original assessment regardless of its allocations policy on household members.
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 any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement, or we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A (6))
How I considered this complaint
I considered information provided by the complainant.
I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
Miss X says the Council accepted that her daughter was part of her household shortly after she applied for housing in April 2022. It changed her needs to 2-beroom on this basis. In September the Council confirmed that she is only entitled to 1-bedroom need because her daughter is part of another household and a social housing tenant receives child benefit for her as part of their household.
The Council accepted that Miss X’s claim that her daughter was resident and spent most of her time with her should have been verified by confirmation of the receipt of child benefit. This is part of the Council’s housing allocations policy and it says her application should not have received the 2-bedroom priority it was given in May.
The Council accepted that it made an error in not checking the child benefit confirmation and has apologised to Miss X. However, if an allocation had been made on the incorrect application, this would have caused disadvantage to others on the housing register with children who are resident and not to Miss X.
The Council corrected the error it made on the assessment of Miss X’s application and we will not consider the matter further.
Final decision
We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s assessment of Miss X’s housing application. There is insufficient evidence of injustice caused by fault which would warrant an investigation.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman