Summary: The Council took over a year to reinstate Ms X’s council tax reduction and then mismanaged paying her the financial remedy it offered her for this fault. The Council has agreed to apologise, pay
Ms X £750, and take action to improve its service.

The complaint

1. Ms X complains the Council failed to reinstate her council tax reduction when it reinstated her housing benefit. Ms X says this resulted in the Council sending enforcement agents to her home.
2. Ms X further complains that the Council then mismanaged its offer of compensation to her, causing her further time, trouble and distress.

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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. 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)
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 considered the complaint and the information Ms X provided.
7. I made written enquiries of the Council and considered its response.
8. I referred to the Ombudsman’s Guidance on Remedies, a copy of which can be found on our website.
9. Ms X and the Council had an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I considered any comments received before making a final decision.

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What I found

Background

10. Ms X moved home in October 2017. She claims both Housing Benefit and Council Tax Reduction (CTR). Housing Benefit is a means tested benefit to help people pay rent. CTR is a discount that reduces the council tax owed for eligible taxpayers.
11. The Council mistakenly thought Ms X moved in December 2017 and didn’t update her address until then. This created an ‘overpayment’ of Housing Benefit which also cancelled her claim to CTR. As a result, the Council created a new liability for council tax at the full amount for October to December 2017.
12. Ms X challenged the Housing Benefit ‘overpayment’ successfully. She asked the Council to make sure this was reflected in her council tax bill too.
13. The Council says it therefore revised the CTR claim in August 2018.
14. However, in January 2019, Ms X received a court summons for non-payment of council tax. She contacted the Council to dispute this.
15. In April 2019, the Council sent Ms X another bill for this two-month period. Ms X also disputed this.
16. In October 2019, the Council wrote to Ms X. It apologised and said it had now resolved the issue and her council tax accounts were clear. It offered to pay her £200 as a remedy for the mistakes and delay in resolving the issue.
17. The Council tried to pay Ms X this £200 in November 2019 however Ms X’s bank rejected the payment.
18. In December 2019, the Council then told Ms X it had instead applied the £200 to a £292 debt owing for the period October to December 2017. This is the debt
    Ms X understood from the October 2019 letter to be cleared.

My findings

19. The Ombudsman does not investigate late complaints unless there is good reason. The issues in this case date back to 2017. However, Ms X only became aware the issue was not resolved when she received a court summons in January 2019. The Council responded to her complaint about this in October 2019. Ms X complained to the Ombudsman in February 2020.
20. Because the issues were ongoing, there is good reason for the Ombudsman to exercise discretion to investigate matters from more than 12 months ago. The passage of time has not affected my ability to conduct a fair investigation because the Council has detailed records for the relevant period.
21. In October 2019, the Council accepted it was at fault for not updating Ms X’s council tax account when the Council reinstated Housing Benefit for October to December 2017.
22. The Council says it revised the claim in August 2018. However, it did not add the CTR to Ms X’s account until September 2019, over a year later. In response to my enquiries about this delay, the Council said:

“The Council Tax Team needed to amend move-out and move-In dates at previous and new addresses to enable the correct CTS to be awarded. This process took some time before the matter could be resolved.”

23. This does not explain why it took over a year to update the account. This delay is fault. Ms X received a court summons in January 2019. Had the Council updated the account as soon as it knew it needed to, this would not have happened. This is an injustice to Ms X.
24. The Council sent another bill to Ms X for this period in April 2019, in which it said it had terminated CTR for the same period. This was understandably frustrating for Ms X and is a further injustice.
25. Ms X says Enforcement Agents visited her home about this debt. The Council’s records show that this was actually about a debt from 2014. However, given the ongoing confusion about Ms X’s council tax, it is understandable that Ms X did not know what debt the agents were enforcing. The Council withdrew enforcement action in October 2019.
26. In October, the Council offered to pay Ms X £200 as a remedy for the fault. Ms X provided her bank account information. The Council tried to pay this amount in November 2019 but it failed. The Council says this was due to an “interface problem” between two of its computer systems.
27. Ms X told the Council she had not received the payment. It asked her to prove it by providing a bank statement for the relevant period. Ms X refused, saying the Council’s own system should show the payment was returned. The Council confirmed this in early December.
28. However, later that month when Ms X was once again chasing the Council for an update, it told her it had applied the £200 to a debt on her account from October to December 2017. The same debt Ms X had spent the previous two years disputing and had been assured in October 2019 she no longer owed. This is fault.
29. Throughout Ms X’s correspondence with the Council over a two-year period, it is clear that the Council’s benefits and council tax teams do not reliably share information. This meant Ms X had to provide the same information to council tax she had already provided to benefits, and vice versa. It is not for claimants to know the intricacies of how the Council splits its functions. Given the connection between benefit entitlement, CTR, and council tax liability, the Council should have systems in place to share relevant information provided to one or other of these departments. The Council’s failure to do so added to Ms X’s sense of frustration.
30. Although the Council has offered Ms X £200 in recognition of the injustice caused by its fault, I do not consider this to be a suitable remedy.
31. It took the Council over a year to update Ms X’s account. It only paid the remedy it agreed for this fault in March 2021. Throughout this entire period, Ms X had to go to significant time and trouble to resolve the issue. She had to repeat the same information over and over again. She was told the matter was resolved in October, only to find it had not been a few months later. Ms X describes feeling that “it’s like banging my head against a brick wall”. This is a significant injustice to Ms X.

Agreed action

32. To remedy the injustice to Ms X from the faults I have identified, the Council has agreed to:
• Apologise to Ms X in writing
• Pay Ms X £750 in recognition of her avoidable distress and extensive and time and trouble in addition to the £200 already offered.
33. The Council should take this action within four weeks of my final decision.
34. The Council has also agreed to take the following action to improve its services:
• Develop an information sharing agreement or memorandum of understanding between the relevant teams in benefits and council tax to ensure relevant information is shared in a timely and efficient manner.
35. The Council should take this action within three months of my final decision.

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Final decision

36. I have completed my investigation. The Council is at fault. The action I have recommended is a suitable remedy for the injustice caused.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman