Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s handling of Mrs X’s application for council tax support as she can appeal to the Valuation Tribunal regarding its decision. There is insufficient evidence of fault causing Mrs X a significant injustice from the ancillary matters she complains about to justify our further involvement, and it is unlikely we could achieve any meaningful outcome by investigating.

The complaint

1. Mrs X complains the Council did not return her calls and emails regarding her application for council tax support. Mrs X says this caused her stress and inconvenience. Mrs X wants the Council to reconsider her application.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
3. We cannot investigate late complaints unless we decide there are good reasons. Late complaints are when someone takes more than 12 months to complain to us about something a council has done. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26B and 34D, as amended)
4. We cannot investigate a complaint if someone has appealed to a tribunal about the same matter. We also cannot investigate a complaint if in doing so we would overlap with the role of a tribunal to decide something which has been or could have been referred to it to resolve using its own powers. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(6)(a), as amended)
5. The law says we cannot normally investigate a complaint when someone has a right of appeal, reference or review to a tribunal about the same matter. However, we may decide to investigate if we consider it would be unreasonable to expect the person to use this right. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(6)(a), as amended)
6. 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 any alleged fault has not caused significant injustice to the person who complained, or there is no worthwhile outcome achievable by our investigation (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

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How I considered this complaint

7. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
8. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

9. In 2022, the Council rejected Mrs X’s application for council tax support (CTS). Mrs X appealed this decision to the Valuation Tribunal (VT) but the appeal was dismissed in March 2024. As per paragraph four, we cannot investigate when an appeal to a tribunal has been made.
10. In addition, much of any complaint about matters during this period is made late to us as not made within a year of Mrs X knowing about the problem. Mrs X is aware of our service and could have complained to us sooner. As such, and as per paragraph three, we would not investigate matters covered by the late complaint, even if the barrier in paragraph nine was not applicable.
11. For these reasons, we will not investigate events prior to March 2024.
12. Mrs X provided additional information to the Council after this time, and it made a CTS award in May 2024. Mrs X was unhappy with this and asked the Council to review its decision. It did so and provided its review decision in June 2024, advising Mrs X of her appeal rights to the VT.
13. Mrs X considers the Council made an error considering her application and disputes the decision on it. Parliament has provided an appeal mechanism by which Mrs X can challenge the Council’s decision, to the VT, an independent tribunal. Mrs X has previously made such an appeal; we are not another level of appeal and cannot make determinations on CTS. It is reasonable therefore to expect Mrs X to appeal and so we will not investigate this aspect of the complaint.
14. Mrs X complains that several phone calls and emails she made to the Council, asking to discuss her application, went unanswered. The Council’s stage two complaint response provides a timeline regarding Mrs X’s contact with it and how it responded.
15. While Mrs X may remain unhappy that she did not receive immediate responses, the timeline appears to indicate that call backs etc were made. In addition, if there was evidence of any fault in this regard, it could not in my view be said to have caused Mrs X a level of injustice that would warrant our further involvement. This is because the substantive injustice to Mrs X arises from the decision on CTS and this can be addressed via an appeal. I do not consider there is evidence of a sufficient injustice caused to Mrs X from ancillary matters to warrant our further involvement. In addition, it is difficult to see what meaningful outcome we could achieve by doing so, now.
16. For these reasons, we will not investigate this complaint.

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Final decision

17. We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because she can appeal the decision on CTS to the VT and there is insufficient evidence of a significant injustice being caused to her from the ancillary matters she complains about, to justify our involvement.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman