Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s assessment of a housing application. There is insufficient evidence of fault which would warrant an investigation.

The complaint

1. Miss X complained about the Council’s failure to support her in a request to move to London where she came from in 2022 when she was homeless. She says her child has suffered discrimination at school and in the area and does not feel safe in Dorset.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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.

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council’s response.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. Miss X moved to the Council’s area in 2022 when she was fleeing violence from her ex-partner. She had no previous connection with the area but presented as homeless and the Council accepted a duty to her and subsequently gave her a social housing tenancy.
6. She says that her child has suffered discrimination at school and in the area due to their accent and appearance and that she does not feel safe in the whole county due to their experiences. She asked the Council to refer her to a London council but it told her it cannot do so. She is considered to be adequately housed and that the social problems her child has experienced are not housing-related and she is not homeless. She is currently involved with the children’s services authority. The Council advised her to seek a mutual exchange with a tenant in the London area as this is the only way she could retain her secure tenancy.
7. She could present herself as homeless to any London authority but she was told there is no certainty that she would be accepted under the homelessness duty and if she abandoned her tenancy she would have further difficulty. If the Council accepted her as homeless it would be required to find her temporary housing in a different part of Dorset away from her current location but she does not wish to be housed in Dorset.
8. 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.

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Final decision

9. We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s assessment of a housing application. There is insufficient evidence of fault which would warrant an investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman