Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about the Council refusing his application for council tax reduction. This is because Mr X could reasonably have used his right to appeal to the Valuation Tribunal.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains the Council:
• Unlawfully refused Mr X’s application for council tax reduction by failing to consider his health condition.
• Applied excessive financial scrutiny to Mr X’s application.
• Used a blanket policy instead of assessing Mr X’s case individually.
• Ignored its legal duty under the Equality Act 2010 to make reasonable adjustments for Mr X’s disability.
• Failed to appropriately process Mr X’s personal data by demanding unnecessary financial information from him.

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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. 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).
4. The Valuation Tribunal deals with appeals against decisions on council tax liability and council tax support or reduction.
5. We normally expect someone to refer the matter to the Information Commissioner if they have a complaint about data protection. However, we may decide to investigate if we think there are good reasons. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended).

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How I considered this complaint

6. I considered information provided by Mr X.
7. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

8. Mr X believes the Council wrongly refused to reduce his council tax. The Council confirmed its decision and told Mr X he had the right to appeal to the Valuation Tribunal within two months. The law expressly provides this route for challenging such decisions, so we normally expect people to use it.
9. It is reasonable to expect Mr X to have appealed to the Valuation Tribunal if he believed the Council’s decision was wrong.
10. I have considered the other elements of Mr X’s complaint, but these are peripheral to the central point of the complaint, which is about the Council’s decision on the application. It would be disproportionate to investigate these peripheral points when we will not investigate the main point.
11. It is more appropriate for the Information Commissioner’s Office than the Ombudsman to consider the alleged data-handling breaches.

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Final decision

12. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because it is reasonable to expect Mr X to have appealed to the Valuation Tribunal Service.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman