Chesterfield Borough Council (19 020 548)
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: The Ombudsman will not investigate this complaint about the Council wrongly suspending the complainant’s council tax direct debit. This is because the Council has provided a fair response and there is not enough injustice to require an investigation.
The complaint
- The complainant, whom I refer to as Ms X, complains about the way the Council handled her council tax and direct debit.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
- 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 we believe:
- the Council has provided a fair and proportionate response; or
- the injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement, or
- it is unlikely further investigation will lead to a different outcome.
(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)
How I considered this complaint
- I read the complaint and the Council’s responses. I considered comments Ms X made in reply to a draft of this decision.
What I found
What happened
- Ms X paid her council tax by direct debit. The Council made an error in June and wrongly suspended the direct debit. This meant a payment of £257 was not collected. An officer subsequently noticed the suspended direct debit. He lifted the suspension and moved the missing payment to February. The Council issued a revised bill showing the adjusted payment plan.
- Ms X did not get the revised bill. She was completely unaware of what had happened until she noticed the February payment, which she was not expecting and had not budgeted for. This payment was stopped. Ms X had to pay the instalment by credit card.
- Ms X complained. In response the Council apologised, explained the direct debit had been suspended in error and that the missing payment was moved to February. It said it had spoken to the officer who made the error and agreed that it would be better if revised bills were issued with a covering letter to explain why it had been issued. It said it will now issue covering letters. It said the revised bill had not been returned and it was not responsible for postal problems. It said Ms X still needed to pay the £257.
- Ms X says she found the incident unbelievable stressful and there was an impact on her finances.
Assessment
- I will not start an investigation because the Council has already provided a fair and proportionate response. It has apologised, explained what went wrong and explained the action it has taken in terms of training and procedural improvements. It also moved the missing payment. This is a fair response and there is nothing more I would ask the Council to do.
- I also will not start an investigation because, once the Council’s response has been taken into account, there is not enough injustice to require an investigation. I appreciate it may have come as a surprise when Ms X saw the February payment and she felt very stressed. But, the Council has explained what happened and, while Ms X had not budgeted for a payment in February, she has not suffered a financial loss and did not pay for one month in 2019. The Council also took on board Ms X’s suggestion that it would be good practice to send a covering letter with revised bills. Ms X says this is just a reaction to something that should have happened but did not. But, it is good administrative practice for a council to learn from mistakes and to implement procedural improvements.
Final decision
- I will not start an investigation because the Council has already provided a fair response and there is not enough remaining injustice to require an investigation.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman