Summary: Mr X complains the Council failed to fully accommodate his communication needs and provide reasonable adjustments under the Equality Act 2010 when handling his application for council tax support. We have found fault by the Council. The Council will apologise and make a financial payment and service improvements to remedy the injustice caused to Mr X.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains the Council failed to fully accommodate his communication needs and provide reasonable adjustments under the Equality Act 2010 when handling his application for council tax support. Mr X says the Council refused to take his application over the telephone and continued to communicate with him by email and post.
2. Mr X says he had to seek help to write emails and respond to the Council. He felt frustrated at the Council’s failure to make reasonable adjustments which meant it became difficult for him to communicate with the Council which also caused unnecessary delays in processing his application.

Back to top

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 an injustice, we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)
4. 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)

Back to top

How I considered this complaint

5. I considered the information provided by Mr X and spoke to him about his complaint. I made enquiries of the Council, considered its response and the documents it provided.
6. Mr X and the Council had the opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I considered their comments before reaching a final decision.

Back to top

What I found

Council tax, including band reductions

7. Council Tax is a tax made on domestic properties. Councils issue one bill to each household. The council tax regulations allow councils to award several discounts and exemptions. These include discounts for people living alone and band reductions for disabled persons who meet certain criteria.

Council tax support/reduction

8. Council tax support (sometimes called council tax reduction) are local schemes to help those on a low income with payment towards all or part of their council tax. Each council has its own rules for what it will pay working age claimants.
9. In 2013, council tax support replaced council tax benefit. The new rules mean council tax support is a reduction in council tax, rather than a welfare benefit. But in many councils, including this one, the benefits team (not the team that manages council tax) still process council tax support/reduction claims.

Equality Act 2010

10. The Equality Act 2010 protects the rights of individuals and supports equality of opportunity for all. It offers protection in employment, education, the provision of goods and services, housing, transport and the carrying out of public functions.
11. The Equality Act makes it unlawful for organisations carrying out public functions to discriminate on any of the nine protected characteristics listed in the Equality Act 2010. They must also have regard to the general duties aimed at eliminating discrimination under the Public Sector Equality Duty.
12. We cannot decide if an organisation has breached the Equality Act as this can only be done by the courts. But we can make decisions about whether or not an organisation has properly taken account of an individual’s rights in its treatment of them.

Reasonable adjustments for people with disabilities

13. The reasonable adjustment duty is set out in the Equality Act 2010 and applies to councils. It aims to make sure that a disabled person can use a service as close as it is reasonably possible to get to the standard usually offered to non-disabled people.
14. Service providers are under a positive and proactive duty to take steps to remove or prevent obstacles to accessing their service. If the adjustments are reasonable, they must make them.
15. The duty is ‘anticipatory’. This means service providers cannot wait until a disabled person wants to use their services but must think in advance about what disabled people with a range of impairments might reasonably need.

What happened

16. Mr X suffers with depression and anxiety which cause his hands to shake. Because of this, Mr X has difficulty with typing and written communication and prefers to provide information verbally. Mr X has confirmed he has no issues in receiving information by email or post.
17. Mr X contacted the Council on 12 January 2022 and requested to complete a verbal application for council tax support. He says the Council refused to take his application over the phone. Mr X contacted the Council again in February 2022 and says his request was still refused.
18. On 25 February 2022 Mr X raised a formal complaint with the Council. He said he wanted to complete his application for council tax support by telephone as a reasonable adjustment. The Council contacted Mr X on the same day and took a verbal application from him. The Council’s records show that it advised Mr X that he needed to provide proof of identification and his benefits.
19. The Council responded to Mr X’s complaint by email and confirmed it had taken a verbal application from Mr X. It said there was no evidence an application form had been submitted in January 2022 or that a referral was made to the benefits team to contact Mr X. The Council apologised to Mr X and agreed to back date his claim for council tax support to 12 January 2022.
20. On 2 March 2022 Mr X contacted the Council by telephone and expressed his dissatisfaction with the response to his complaint. Mr X felt financial compensation and commitment to regular staff training on disability right and equality would be a better outcome for everybody.
21. Two weeks later the Council sent Mr X an email and asked him to provide further information in support of his claim by 12 April 2022. It requested copies of Mr X’s:

• tenancy agreement;
• proof of identity;
• full breakdown of universal credit award; and
• bank statements for the last two months.

22. The Council also asked Mr X to provide in writing, details of any other changes in the income, capital and/or circumstances of all other residents of his home. It provided an email address for submitting this information.
23. On 27 April 2022 Mr X contacted the Council by telephone and requested an update on his council tax support application. Mr X said he had sent the information requested but the Council said it had not received it. Mr X said he would ask his neighbour to scan the documents and submit them at the Council’s office.
24. Two days later Mr X called the Council again, this time chasing a response to his request for a review of his complaint.
25. On 5 May 2022 Mr X submitted an online application for discretionary housing payment. In his application Mr X declared he had agoraphobia, asthma, anxiety, and depression. The Council sent Mr X and email stating that it could not consider his application for discretionary housing payments until he had completed his application for local council tax support. It said Mr X had not provided the information requested in March 2022. The Council told Mr X to provide this information by 13 May 2022 or he may be asked to submit a new application. It provided an email address for any questions Mr X had in relation to his claim.
26. On 11 May 2022 the Council told Mr X that based on the information available it decided that Mr X did not qualify for council tax support. However, it said it would review its decision if the information requested was received in the next two days.
27. On 18 May 2022 the Council contacted Mr X by email again and asked him to complete a new online application for local council tax support.
28. On 31 May 2022 the Council responded to Mr X’s request for a review of his complaint. It said that Mr X did not specify he was requesting a stage two review. It asked Mr X to clarify this, which he did on the same day.
29. On 6 June 2022 Mr X provided a copy of his bank statements and partial proof of his universal credit award. Mr X said it takes him a while to send the information and the Council did not allow him enough time. He also said he expected the forms to be sent by post based on his previous conversations with the Council. He asked the Council to consider backdating his claim.
30. On the same day the Council contacted Mr X by telephone to discuss his request for council tax support. It also addressed Mr X’s complaint. The Council sent Mr X an email confirming what had been discussed. The Council said that Mr X had not provided the supporting information requested to process his claim and the applications had timed out. The Council agreed to send an application by registered post. Mr X said he wanted to ensure the application was backdated to January 2022 as previously agreed but the Council said this was not guaranteed.
31. The Council told Mr X that all staff receive mandatory disability awareness training and ongoing training was available to staff. It said that to make a claim for compensation Mr X would need to complete an online insurance claim. The Council said it would arrange support for Mr X if this was something he wished to pursue. The Council confirmed that this was its final response to the complaint and signposted Mr X to the Ombudsman if he remained dissatisfied.
32. On 20 June 2022 the Council confirmed to Mr X that he was now outside the period for his claim to be reopened and he would have to complete a new application.

Analysis

33. Mr X complains the Council failed to fully accommodate his communication needs and provide reasonable adjustments under the Equality Act 2010. He says the Council failed to communicate with him by telephone.
34. Mr X has a right to go to court if he believes the Council has discriminated against him by not making reasonable adjustments, or breaching the reasonable adjustments put in place. However, we must consider if it is reasonable for Mr X to go to court.
35. Government guidance says taking court action about discrimination can be “lengthy, expensive and draining”. Given Mr X’s communication difficulties, I do not consider it reasonable to expect him to take action in court. Only the courts can decide whether the Council has discriminated against Mr X. But we can decide if the Council has acted with fault in dealing with Mr X’s request for reasonable adjustments.
36. The key to understanding whether there has been fault is recognising:
• The Council’s proactive duty to make adjustments; and
• The Council only has the duty to make ‘reasonable’ adjustments.
37. The Council does not have any records of the calls made by Mr X in January and February 2022. However, these calls and Mr X’s request for verbal communication were the subject of his telephone call on 25 February 2022 and his subsequent complaint. In my view the Council was at least aware by this date that Mr X required a reasonable adjustment in the way it communicated with him and that his preferred method of communication was by telephone as he required assistance with competing forms and providing information. There is no evidence the Council updated Mr X’s records with these details. This is fault and I consider it was reasonable for Mr X to expect this had happened. There is also no evidence this information was passed to the benefits team. This is fault.
38. As explained above, the duty to make reasonable adjustments is anticipatory. The Council should proactively take steps to remove or prevent obstacles to disabled people accessing their service. If the adjustments are reasonable, the Council must make them. It is not fault for the Council to ask Mr X for any information it needed to assess his claim for council tax support and Mr X has confirmed that he has no issue with reading written information.
39. However, I have seen no evidence the benefits team considered Mr X’s reasonable adjustments and, if so, how it would accommodate them. I find the Council failed to consider Mr X’s need for verbal communication when it contacted him by email and requested further information in support of his claim. Instead, it sent standardised emails and expected Mr X to respond in writing. This is fault. This caused Mr X distress and uncertainty and he could not understand why the Council continued to request information by email only.
40. It is not the role of the Ombudsman to decide whether Mr X’s requests were either related to his disability, or reasonable. Or whether the Council could offer alternative adjustments. But we can look at how the Council explored with Mr X his need for reasonable adjustments. At various points the Council had the opportunity to update Mr X’s records and discuss his reasonable adjustments:
• in its stage one complaint response;
• Mr X’s email dated 2 March 2022 referred to disability rights and staff training which the Council failed to respond to in a timely manner;
• in April 2022 when Mr X said he would ask his neighbour for support with providing the documentation the Council had requested;
• Mr X’s application for discretionary housing payments stated he had agoraphobia, asthma, anxiety, and depression; and
• In June 2022 when Mr X told the Council he was not given enough time to provide the supporting information and he expected the forms to be sent by post based on his previous conversations with the Council.

41. These missed opportunities are fault and added to Mr X’s distress and uncertainty.
42. The Council sent me copy of its Customer Charter which says it will make reasonable adjustments to give equal access to information, services, and buildings. This does not provide any detail on how the Council considers requests for reasonable adjustments nor does it provide any guidance for staff on how and when to make reasonable adjustments for its service users. This is fault. On balance, I find the lack of a clear policy and guidance for staff on reasonable adjustments contributed to the Council’s failure to consider and meet Mr X’s communication needs.
43. I also find fault with the Council’s handling of Mr X’s complaint. The Council failed to respond to Mr X’s request for compensation and a review of the stage one response. The Council also failed to respond Mr X’s request for an update on his stage two complaint which caused further delay.

Back to top

Agreed action

44. Within four weeks of my final decision, the Council will:
1. apologise to Mr X and consider whether verbal communication can be provided as a reasonable adjustment in his ongoing claim for council tax support;
2. consider back dating his application for council tax support to 12 January 2022 so that he is not disadvantaged by the faults identified in this statement. The Council should provide Mr X with its decision on this; and
3. make Mr X a payment of £200 to recognise the significant time and trouble he was put to asking the Council to consider making reasonable adjustments and its failure to act on this request. This payment is in line with the Ombudsman’s published guidance on remedies.
45. Within three months of my final decision, the Council will make the following service improvements:
1. produce clear guidance to staff on how and when to consider whether they need to make any reasonable adjustments for service users. This should include, for example, asking the service user if the Council needs to make any adjustments in the way it communicates with them to ensure the complainant can fully access its service. This guidance should be clearly embedded in the Council’s guidance on handling complaints and its procedure on benefit claims;
2. share this decision with relevant staff members; and
3. provide the Ombudsman with evidence that these actions have been completed.

Back to top

Final decision

46. I have completed my investigation finding fault by the Council causing an injustice to Mr X.

Back to top

Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman