Summary: The Ombudsman will not investigate this complaint about how the Council arranged a payment from the complainant’s late brother’s estate. This is because it is unlikely he will find fault by the Council and the complainant has not been caused injustice.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I will refer to as Mrs X, has complained about how the Council arranged a payment from her late brother’s estate.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We may decide not to start or continue with an investigation if we believe:

• it is unlikely we would find fault, or
• the injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement.

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

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How I considered this complaint

3. I have considered the information provided by Mrs X in support of her complaint. I have also considered the correspondence provided by the Council. I invited Mrs X to comment on a draft of this decision.

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What I found

4. In August 2018, Mrs X’s brother died. The Council had been managing his finances and therefore needed to pay the money in his estate to Mrs X who was the estate administrator. Mrs X sent the Council further information so it could arrange the payment. Following this, the Council contacted Mrs X as it had lost the documents she had provided. It asked her to visit its offices with another copy. Before the meeting was due to take place, the documents were located, and the meeting was cancelled. Mrs X has complained about the Council losing her paperwork. She has also complained the Council delayed making the payment and therefore she lost out on interest as result.
5. The Council accepts it misplaced Mrs X’s paperwork and says it should have carried out a more through search for the documents before asking Mrs X to provide another copy. It has already apologised to Mrs X and said staff will be given further training. It also said it did not tell Mrs X the exact date it would make a transfer as this could be impacted by other factors such as banking processes.

Assessment

6. The Council has accepted that it lost the documents Mrs X provided. However, it located this information before Mrs X was due to visit its offices with another copy and so she has not been caused any significant injustice.
7. Mrs X has also complained that the Council delayed making a payment to her in settlement of her late brother’s estate. However, the Council processed a payment on the same day it located Mrs X’s documents (20 September 2018). The payment was not received in Mrs X’s account until 25 September, but this was due to banking processes and outside of the Council’s control. Therefore, it is unlikely I would find any fault by the Council. Even if it could be shown that there were delays with the Council making the payment to Mrs X, this has not caused any significant injustice as it is likely the funds would have gained only a small amount of interest.

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Final decision

8. The Ombudsman will not investigate this complaint. This is because it is unlikely he would find fault and Mrs X has not been caused any significant injustice.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman