Summary: Miss X complained about how the Council refused her application to join its social housing register. There was no fault in how the Council made its decisions about Miss X’s housing register application, though it did provide some conflicting reasons for its decisions. That caused Miss X some avoidable confusion for which the Council agreed to apologise. The Council will also remind its staff they should include clear explanations of the reasons for appeal decisions.

The complaint

1. Miss X complains the Council wrongly refused to allow her and her partner to join its housing register. She says the Council failed to properly take into account that she needed to move closer to family for support with her health. She also says the Council wrongly refused her application because she did not have a “local connection” with its area.
2. She says the Council’s refusal caused her significant distress. She wants the Council to allow her to join its housing register and apply for social housing.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word fault to refer to these. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint. I refer to this as ‘injustice’. If there has been fault which has caused significant injustice, or that could cause injustice to others in the future we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)
4. 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)
5. When considering complaints we make findings based on the balance of probabilities. This means that we look at the available relevant evidence and decide what was more likely to have happened.
6. If we are satisfied with an organisation’s actions or proposed actions, we can complete our investigation and issue a decision statement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 30(1B) and 34H(i), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

7. I considered evidence provided by Miss X and the Council, as well as relevant law, policy and guidance.
8. Miss X and the Council had an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I considered their comments before making a final decision.

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What I found

Housing allocations

9. Every local housing authority must publish an allocations scheme that sets out how it prioritises applicants, and its procedures for allocating housing. All allocations must be made in strict accordance with the published scheme. (Housing Act 1996, section 166A(1) & (14))
10. An allocations scheme must give reasonable preference to applicants in the following categories:

• homeless people;
• people in insanitary, overcrowded or unsatisfactory housing;
• people who need to move on medical or welfare grounds;
• people who need to move to avoid hardship to themselves or others;
  (Housing Act 1996, section 166A(3))

11. Housing authorities can only allocate accommodation to people who are “qualifying persons”.
12. The Localism Act 2011 introduced new freedoms to allow councils to better manage their waiting list and to tailor their allocation priorities to meet local needs.
13. The law allows each council to decide who is, or is not, a qualifying person. This means the council may exclude a person from the register for any number of reasons including a history of rent arrears, anti-social behaviour or having no local connection.
14. In its code of guidance, the Government “strongly encourages” all councils to adopt a residency requirement and says “a reasonable period” would be “at least two years”.

The Council’s allocations scheme

15. The Council’s housing allocation scheme says that, to join its housing register, most people must either have a local connection with its area, or must have a housing need and demonstrate a contribution to its area.
16. Under the Council’s policy, someone has a local connection with its area if:
• they have lived in the area for the six of the last twelve months, or three years in the last five;
• their parents, adult children, brothers or sisters live in the Council’s area and the relatives have been resident for the previous five years;
• they or a member of their household have paid employment or a confirmed offer of paid employment within the Council’s area; or
• they were previously in the care of the local county council.
17. The Council’s policy gives reasonable preference to people who need to move on medical, welfare or hardship grounds. Depending on the extent of their difficulties, the Council gives different levels of priority:
• High housing need (Band 3) where someone, or a member of their household, has a medical condition that is impaired by their housing situation, but they are generally able to cope.
• Urgent priority (Band 2) where someone, or a member of their household, has a medical condition that is severely impaired by their housing situation or their housing contributes to causing serious ill health. Or, there are exceptional circumstances where the only way a housing need can be resolved is through the use of the Council’s discretion.
• Emergency priority (Band 1) where someone, or a member of their household, serious medical condition or disability that is made substantially worse by the current housing. This includes people whose life is at risk due to their current housing conditions or who are completely housebound because of the type of accommodation they live in.
18. If someone disagrees with the Council’s decision, the Council has a review panel which considers reviews from applicants and whether the qualification criteria should be relaxed for exceptional cases.

What happened

19. Miss X and her partner live outside the Council’s area. They applied to join the Council’s housing register in 2024. Miss X told the Council she wanted to live closer to relatives who live in the Council’s area, so they could provide her support with her mental health.
20. The Council refused Miss X’s application because she did not have a connection to the Council’s area, and her relatives had not lived in the Council’s area for the required period.
21. Miss X appealed the Council’s decision. She said the Council should make an exception to its residence requirement because of how long her relative had lived in the Council’s area and because of her mental health needs.
22. The Council considered Miss X’s appeal at panel meetings in late June and late July 2024. The panel decided that Miss X’s circumstances were not exceptional and that she did not have a housing need.
23. In August 2024, the Council provided Miss X with more details about its decision. It explained that it did not consider her mental health condition was made worse by her housing situation or that there were reasons to make an exception to is qualification criteria.

My findings

24. It is not our role to decide if Miss X should be allowed to join the Council’s housing register; that is the Council’s responsibility. Our role is to assess whether the Council made its decision properly. We cannot question a decision the Council has made if it followed the right steps and considered relevant evidence.
25. I am satisfied the evidence shows the Council considered all the information Miss X provided as part of her application, including the medical evidence. The Council also:
• asked Miss X for more information about her and her partner’s medical conditions;
• sought advice from an independent medical adviser, who also considered the medical evidence Miss X provided; and
• asked Miss X’s current landlord for more details about her tenancy.
26. While there was some confusion over addresses when contacting Miss X’s current landlord, I do not consider this amounted to fault. In any case, the Council obtained the correct information it needed and therefore any fault would not have caused Miss X an injustice.
27. After considering the information, the Council decided that since Miss X did not meet the residence requirements, she did not qualify under the Council’s allocation scheme. This was in line with the Council’s published scheme, so was not fault.
28. The Council considered whether to make an exception to its qualification criteria based on Miss X’s medical needs, including whether she met the requirements under the Council’s policy for medical priority. As part of this, I am satisfied the Council considered both Miss X’s medical conditions and her current housing situation. I do not consider there was fault with how the Council decided whether it should make an exception to its qualification criteria in her case. The decision about whether Miss X met the Council’s criteria for medical priority was for the Council to make, based on its view of the evidence.
29. I understand Miss X disagrees with the Council’s decision about her medical priority and whether it should make an exception to its qualification criteria. However, since there was no fault with how the Council made its decisions, I cannot question the outcome.
30. I do consider there was some fault with how the Council explained its decisions to Miss X:
• There was some inconsistency in the explanations it gave. While I consider this was likely to try to explain the decisions in different ways to Miss X, and to respond to her further comments, I accept this caused some confusion to Miss X.
• The Council also did not include detailed reasons in its appeal decision letter to Miss X. It did not explain how it had considered whether there were exceptional circumstances. However, the Council did explain this in is final response to Miss X in August of 2024.

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Action

31. Within one month of my final decision the Council will apologise for the confusion it caused by giving different explanations of its decisions.
32. We publish guidance on remedies which sets out our expectations for how organisations should apologise effectively to remedy injustice. The organisation should consider this guidance in making the apology I have recommended in my findings.
33. Within three months of my final decision the Council will remind staff responsible for preparing housing allocation appeal responses that they should include clear explanations of the reasons for the decisions.
34. The Council should provide us with evidence it has complied with the above actions.

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Decision

35. There was no fault in how the Council made its decisions about Miss X’s housing register application, though it did provide some conflicting reasons. That caused Miss X some avoidable confusion for which the Council will apologise. The Council will also remind its staff they should include clear explanations of the reasons for appeal decisions.

Investigator’s decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman