Housing allocations for Disabled people

This Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman guide highlights issues disabled people face when applying to councils’ housing schemes, and the changes local councils can make to improve those services.

Issues covered in the Guide include councils’ delays when processing, assessing and reviewing medical assessments and housing applications by people with disabilities. In particular, it recommends improving the experiences people with disabilities face by:

• prioritising prompt and accurate assessments of applications for social housing and associated medical assessments
• carrying out reviews promptly, and giving reasoned decisions which reference the relevant parts of the allocations scheme
• making accountable decisions about medical priority which do not simply adopt the opinion of a third-party assessor, but reflect all the evidence and the allocations scheme
• applying the allocations scheme to individual cases fairly and accurately and avoiding blanket claims of what the policy says without direct reference to those policies, and
• ensuring housing and social services can work together to identify housing needs and share information