Summary: The Ombudsman has no reason to investigate this complaint about the Council’s mistakes in dealing with a council tax account. This because the Council has already taken suitable action to remedy what went wrong, in its own investigation of the complaint.

The complaint

1. The complainant, who I shall call Mr B, complained that the Council sent letters for him to the wrong address. Mr B said this meant he was not aware the Council was pursuing him for arrears of council tax until after it had obtained a liability order against him and referred matters to enforcement agents to collect the debt. As a result Mr B wanted the Council to explain what happened, correct his tax account, cancel the liability order and legal costs, and withdraw his case from the enforcement agents. Mr B also complained the Council had breached data protection provisions by sending a letter for him to an estranged relative’s address.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We may decide not to start an investigation if, for example, we believe:

• it is unlikely we would find fault, or
• the fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained, or
• the injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement, or
• it is unlikely we could add to any previous investigation by the Council, or
• there is another body better placed to consider the complaint. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered the information Mr B provided with his complaint. I also gave Mr B an opportunity to comment on a draft of this decision before I reached a final view in his case. In addition I took account of the Council’s correspondence with Mr B regarding his complaint.

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What I found

4. Mr B owned a property in the Council’s area for which he paid council tax. Mr B also aimed to sell the property.
5. In June 2019 the Council sent Mr B a council tax bill for the year 2019/2020 to the property address. In July Mr B paid the first instalment due, but also informed the Council he was selling the house and would only be liable for tax for part of the year until the date of the sale.
6. The Council did not send any further council tax correspondence to the property address and instead sent this to what it thought was Mr B’s home address. But the Council had wrongly recorded the address and, as a result, Mr B did not receive the tax reminders and court summons it subsequently issued.
7. The Council became aware of its error after its correspondence was returned as undelivered. This was in October 2019, around the same time as the court granted a liability order against Mr B.
8. When the liability order notification was also returned as undelivered the Council attempted to find an alternative address for Mr B. As a result it sent a letter to the address of a relative who was, in fact, estranged from Mr B. The Council also referred Mr B’s case to enforcement agents to collect the debt.
9. In November Mr B contacted the Council to inform it that he had sold the property. He also made a complaint to the Council about what had happened in his case.
10. The Council responded to Mr B’s complaint in early December. But he was not satisfied and asked to go to the next level of its complaints procedure. Mr B complained to us in late January 2020 as he had not received a further response from the Council.
11. We made enquiries to the Council, and in February it replied including a copy of a further complaint response it had just sent to Mr B.
12. In its further response the Council confirmed it had reported the data breach in Mr B’s case to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). The ICO decided not to take any further action against the Council, but they did ask it to investigate what had gone wrong and take steps to ensure there was no repeat of the error. The Council apologised to Mr B for this and confirmed it would implement the ICO’s findings.
13. In addition the Council apologised to Mr B for its mistake regarding his address, sent him a revised tax bill in line with the period he owned the property, took back his case from the enforcement agents, withdrew the liability order and removed all the legal costs from his tax account.

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Analysis

14. From the information provided in Mr B’s case, I do not see we would be justified in using our resources to investigate his complaint.
15. First, we normally expect someone to refer matters to the ICO if they have a complaint about data protection, as the ICO is the body appointed to deal with data breaches.
16. It is clear the ICO has already been involved in Mr B’s case as a result of the Council’s self-referral. I understand Mr B has also made a separate complaint to the ICO. In the circumstances I consider that if Mr B is not satisfied with the ICO’s response so far regarding the data protection issue he can pursue this matter further with them through his own complaint.
17. As a result I do not see we should investigate this part of Mr B’s complaint.
18. In addition, I consider that the Council’s final complaint response has effectively addressed the other issues in Mr B’s complaint.
19. The Ombudsman’s aim in recommending remedies for injustice in complaints is to seek to put the person back in the position they would have been if not for the Council’s fault. I consider that the Council’s response achieves this aim. It also appears to provide the remedy Mr B was asking for.
20. In the circumstances I do not see there is a need for us to pursue Mr B’s complaint any further as it is unlikely we could add to the Council’s own investigation in his case.

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Final decision

21. The Ombudsman does not have grounds to investigate Mr B’s complaint about errors the Council made in dealing with his council tax account. This is mainly because we are unlikely to achieve a different outcome to the one already provided by the Council in his case.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman