Summary: Mr X complains the Council failed to respond to his request for a repayment plan and wrongly told him an instalment of Council Tax would not be deducted. The Council responded to Mr X’s request for a repayment plan in 2016 and offered a repayment plan to him in 2017. The Council is at fault as it wrongly told Mr X that the July 2019 instalment of Council Tax would not be deducted from his account. Mr X was caused distress by the fault which the Council has agreed to remedy by making a payment of £100 to him.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains that the Council:
1. Failed to respond to his requests in 2016 to arrange a repayment plan for his Council Tax arrears and would not agree to a repayment plan which could afford in 2017. As a result the Council passed Mr X’s account to the enforcement agents to collect and he incurred fees.
2. Wrongly told Mr X that the July 2019 instalment of his repayment plan for Council Tax arrears would not be deducted from his bank account. The Council then deducted the payment which caused financial hardship to Mr X as he had allocated the money for that payment to other expenditure.
    

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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)
3. I have exercised discretion to investigate Mr X’s complaint from October 2016 as he has provided good reasons why he could not make a complaint to us before now.
4. 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)
5. If we are satisfied with a council’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)

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How I considered this complaint

6. I have:
• Considered the complaint and the information provided by Mr X.
• Discussed the issues with Mr X.
• Considered the Council’s responses to Mr X’s complaint.
• Invited Mr X and the Council to comment on my draft decision.

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What I found

7. The Council’s recovery policy for Council Tax sets out its recovery process for Council Tax arrears. It provides that the Council can instruct Enforcement Agents if person with arrears fails to complete and return an income details form or fails to make a mutually acceptable payment arrangement and make the agreed payments.

What happened

2016/17

8. Mr X accrued Council Tax arrears between 2008 to 2013/14. The Council had been recovering the arrears by an attachment of earnings. It cancelled this Mr X’s employer notified the Council his earnings were too low for an attachment of earnings.
9. The Council offered an arrangement to Mr X for the debts for the Council Tax years 2011/12, 2012/13 and 2013/14. It asked Mr X to pay £95 per month for 12 months to clear the debt. This was in addition to Mr X’s Council Tax liability for the current year. Mr X contacted the Council on 28 October by email as he had received letters for the other arrears. Mr X said he was off sick and gave details of his income. He asked if he could pay £96 per month in total for all of the debts. Mr X did not receive a reply so he sent a further email.
10. On 22 November 2016 the Council sent a letter and an income and expenditure form to Mr X. It asked him to complete the form and offer a sensible amount for the arrears. The Council has provided a copy of an undated letter from Mr X referring to another letter outlining his Council Tax payments. The Council has said Mr X did not return the form detailing his income and expenditure. It has also said Mr X made two payment of £95 but did not pay any further instalments.
11. In January 2017 the Council sent a letter to Mr X offering a repayment arrangement for the debts for 2008/09 and 2009/10. It asked Mr X to pay £94 per month after his payment arrangement for the 2011-2013 arrears had ended. The Council has said Mr X did not respond. Mr X has said he did not receive any response to his emails requesting a payment arrangement.
12. Between January and May 2017 the Council sent further reminders and income and expenditure forms for him to complete. These letters notified Mr X the Council could take recovery action including passing his account to enforcement agents if he did not respond. The Council has said Mr X did not respond so it sought to recover the debts by an attachment to Mr X’s benefits. The Department of Work and Pensions notified the Council that Mr X was not claiming deductible benefits.
13. The Council has said that in early August 2017 Mr X telephoned to make a payment of £258 towards his current year’s Council Tax. The Council advised Mr X that his payments had been recalculated and his next payment was due on 28 August 2017 and no payment was taken. As I understand it Mr X’s position is that he called to arrange a reasonable repayment plan at this time. The Council sent further income and expenditure forms to Mr X to complete at the end of August 2017. Mr X has said he did not receive any income and expenditure forms.
14. Mr X was paying his current year’s Council Tax but did not make payments towards the arrears for 2008/09 and 2009/10 so the Council passed his account to enforcement agents to collect. The enforcement agent’s records show it issued a compliance letter and visited Mr X’s property in November 2017. It charged Mr X a compliance fee of £75 for the letter and enforcement fee of £235 for the visit. These are fees fixed by law. Mr X paid the arrears in December 2017.

2019

15. On 4 July 2019 Mr X telephoned the Council to ask it to postpone the July payment of his Council Tax as he could not afford the payment. Mr X made his payments by direct debit. The officer dealing with Mr X’s call told him the instalment would be postponed. This information was incorrect as the Council had already requested the payment for collection and it was too late to stop the deduction of the payment from Mr X’s account.
16. Mr X made a complaint to the Council which it considered through its two stage complaints procedure. At stage one the Council acknowledged that the officer should have told Mr X that the payment could not be cancelled. It apologised to Mr X for the distress caused and offered to reduce his monthly payments by extending them to March 2020. Mr X requested his complaint be considered at stage two of the complaints procedure as he considered an apology to be insufficient as the fault had left him substantially worse off.
17. The Council again acknowledged it was at fault for not advising Mr X that the payment could not be stopped. It considered an apology was sufficient as it could not have stopped the payment so Mr X would have needed to manage the impact of the payment. The Council also advised officers would receive training on direct debit payments to prevent the same error from reoccurring.
18. In making his complaint to the Ombudsman, Mr X has said the fault by the Council caused him financial hardship. This is because he had allocated the money for the Council Tax payment to other expenditure as he was not expecting to have to pay it that month. So he did not have enough to pay all his bills after the Council Tax instalment was unexpectedly deducted and he incurred missed payment fees.

My assessment

Did the Council fail to respond to Mr X’s requests for a repayment plan in 2016 and would not agree to a repayment plan in 2017?

19. The evidence shows the Council responded to Mr X’s request to pay £96 per month for all his arrears in 2016 and offered a repayment plan to Mr X in January 2017. Mr X has said he did not receive an offer of a repayment plan from the Council. The Council has provided a copy of its letter of January 2017 offering the repayment plan to Mr X so I have no reason to doubt this was sent to Mr X. I do not know why Mr X did not receive this letter but I cannot conclude this was caused by fault by the Council.
20. The Council responded in November 2016 to Mr X’s email of October 2016 and asked him to complete and return an income and expenditure form. It is not clear when Mr X sent a letter making an offer as the letter is undated. But I will not pursue this further. The Council offered a repayment plan to Mr X in January 2017 for 2008/09 and 2009/10 to commence after Mr X had completed the repayments for the 2011-2014 arrears. So, I am satisfied the Council offered a repayment plan to Mr X as he requested in October 2016.
21. The Council also sent further income and expenditure forms to Mr X to complete between January and May 2017 and in late August 2017. Mr X has said he did not receive any of the income and expenditure forms sent to him. The Council has provided copies of the forms sent to Mr X so I have no reason to doubt it did not send these to him. I do not know why Mr X did not receive them but I cannot conclude this was caused by fault by the Council.
22. Mr X and the Council have put forward different accounts of the telephone call of August 2017. The telephone call was not recorded and I have no means of establishing if Mr X was seeking to make a payment to the current year’s Council Tax or if he was trying to arrange a repayment plan. However, as I state above, the Council sent income and expenditure forms to Mr X in late August 2017 to complete and there is no evidence to show he returned the forms. So, I am satisfied the Council was not at fault for referring Mr X’s arrears to Enforcement Agents to collect.

Council wrongly informing Mr X that the July 2019 instalment would not be deducted.

23. The Council has acknowledged it is at fault as the officer did not inform Mr X that the July payment could not be cancelled as the Council had already requested the payment from Mr X’s bank. It also offered to reduce Mr X’s monthly payments by extending the payment period. So, the question for me is whether the Council’s apology and offer to reduce Mr X’s payments is sufficient to remedy Mr X’s injustice.
24. I am satisfied Mr X was caused distress by the Council wrongly informing him that the payment would not be taken. Mr X requested to not pay July’s instalment as he was in financial difficulty. It is likely Mr X’s financial difficulties will have been made worse by the unexpected deduction of the Council Tax instalment from his account. Mr X says he committed the money for the Council Tax payment to other expenditure as he was not expecting to pay it. Mr X may also have made different decisions as to how he spent his money if he had known the payment would be deducted. As a result, Mr X did not have sufficient money to pay other bills and incurred fees for missed payments. An apology and offer to reduce the monthly payments are welcome but this is not sufficient to remedy the injustice to Mr X.

Agreed action

25. The Council will make a payment of £100 to Mr X to acknowledge the distress caused to him by the Council wrongly telling him that the Council Tax instalment for July 2019 would not be deducted from his account. The Council should take this action within one month of my final decision.

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Final decision

26. The Council responded to Mr X’s request for a repayment plan in 2016 and offered a repayment plan to him in 2017. The Council is at fault as it wrongly told Mr X that the July 2019 instalment of Council Tax would not be deducted from his account. Mr X was caused distress by the fault which the Council has agreed to remedy by making a payment of £100 to him. I have therefore completed my investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman