Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s handling of Miss X’s benefits. This is mainly because the relevant events were too long ago for there to be a realistic chance of us reaching a clear enough view on the relevant points.

The complaint

1. Mr Y represents Miss X. He states Miss X has a learning disability so cannot properly understand the benefits system and letters about benefits. Mr Y complains the Council:
1. Did not tell Miss X she could claim council tax benefit (CTB) when she claimed housing benefit (HB) about 20 years ago.
2. Did not check whether Miss X understood its correspondence in 2003 about a HB overpayment.
3. Recovered the HB overpayment without offsetting it against benefits Mr Y said Miss X was entitled to but did not claim.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We can decide whether to start or discontinue an investigation into a complaint within our jurisdiction. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 24A(6) and 34B(8), as amended)
3. 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 further investigation would not lead to a different outcome. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6))

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How I considered this complaint

4. I considered information provided by Mr Y. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

Not offering Miss X the opportunity to claim CTB when she claimed HB

5. Mr Y says when Miss X first claimed HB about 20 years ago, the Council did not ask her if she also wanted to claim CTB. He says this resulted in Miss X owing council tax that CTB should have covered.
6. Miss X’s HB claim dated back at least to 1999. The Council says from at least February 2000, when its current CTB records date from, Miss X claimed CTB or council tax reduction (CTR, which replaced CTB in 2013) for every period for which she was both claiming HB and was liable for council tax.
7. We cannot expect to reach a clear enough view now about:
1. Whether Miss X did not claim CTB for any period before February 2000 when she was claiming HB and was liable for council tax.
2. What happened when Miss X got her original HB claim form in or before 1999. Mr Y says Miss X collected the form from the Council office but was not offered a CTB claim form at the same time. We cannot expect to establish clearly enough now what happened in any conversation between Miss X and a Council representative over 20 years ago. Also, the Council had no automatic duty to offer a CTB claim form to anyone using a HB claim form. They were two separate benefits that did not necessarily always go together.
3. What would have happened if Miss X had claimed CTB for any gap before the start of her claim that was in payment in February 2000. Rules about eligibility and how much CTB a claimant might be entitled to changed over the years.
8. We cannot expect to reach a clear enough view now about the matters above, which date back over 20 years.
9. Mr Y says the Council handled benefits matters differently when he paid council tax after claiming HB in 2016. However, what happened in 2016 does not enable us to decide that whatever might have happened before February 2000 was wrong. Also, by 2016 CTR, a different system, had replaced CTB.

Communications about HB overpayment

10. In 2003 the Council wrote to Miss X saying it had overpaid her HB from 1999 to 2003 because she had not told it about a change in her circumstances. I understand the letter said the Council intended to recover the overpayment and invited Miss X to make a new HB claim for 1999 to 2003 so the Council could calculate what, if anything, she had actually been entitled to and offset that against the overpayment.
11. Miss X did not reply so the Council decided to recover the full overpayment without being able to decide if Miss X had any underlying HB entitlement in 1999-2003 against which it could have offset the overpayment. Mr Y states Miss X did not reply in 2003 because she did not understand the correspondence and no longer had the family help she previously had in dealing with such letters. Mr Y argues the Council should have checked Miss X had received and understood the letters. The Council says as it received various benefit claims and visits from Miss X over the last 20 years to discuss benefits, it had no reason to believe she could not deal with matters.
12. The Council does not have to check a benefit claimant has received and understood letters about their claim. If someone claims benefit, there is no fault in the Council presuming the claimant will be able to deal with correspondence about the claim, either alone or by seeking help.
13. I have not seen any suggestion the Council knew Miss X had needed family help to claim benefits or that she did not have that help at the time of the overpayment decision. Anyway, we cannot expect to establish clearly enough now what the Council knew about Miss X’s understanding of the relevant matters in 2003.
14. Nor can we reasonably expect to establish clearly enough what would have been likely to happen if the Council should have realised Miss X needed help in 2003. We do not know whether Miss X would have made a new HB claim. Nor do we know what the result of any such claim would have been, as that would have depended on detailed information about Miss X’s circumstances between 1999 and 2003 and the changing rules on HB entitlement and calculations in that period.

Not offsetting the recovery of HB overpayment

15. Mr Y is dissatisfied with the Council’s decision to reclaim the full HB overpayment rather than offsetting it against other benefits (HB and CTB) he says Miss X might have claimed had she been properly informed. The Council does not have to do that. Also, as I stated above, the evidence suggests Miss X received CTB for most of the relevant period anyway. The Council cannot reasonably speculate now whether there might have been some period for which Miss X did not claim CTB to which she might have been entitled. Nor can the Council speculate what might have happened had Miss X made an amended HB claim for 1999 to 2003 as the Council invited her to do in 2003.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman