South Somerset District Council (21 002 414)
Category : Benefits and tax > Council tax
Decision : Closed after initial enquiries
Decision date : 30 Jun 2021
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: Mr and Mrs X complain about the way their council tax account was administered. The Ombudsman will not investigate this complaint because there is no evidence of fault by the Council causing injustice to warrant investigation.
The complaint
- Mr and Mrs X complain about the way their council tax account was administered.
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 or continue with an investigation if 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.
(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)
How I considered this complaint
- I have considered the comments of the complainant and the Council’s responses to the complaint.
What I found
- The complainants’ council tax charge increased as a result of a change of circumstances. The recent council tax bill showed that increase. The complainants say that they were not told why the charge had increased.
- The Council says that the recent bill detailed the increased charge. They say that there had previously been a credit but this was included in the new bill.
- The complainants says that this led to stress and time and trouble.
- The Council offered a payment of the refund but this was refused as it would increase the existing bill.
- The complainants have not suffered any financial loss and I am not persuaded that there is any significant personal, serious injustice to them to warrant investigation. Nor is there evidence of fault by the Council.
Final decision
- I will not investigate this complaint because there is no evidence of fault by the Council causing injustice.
Investigator’s decision on behalf of the Ombudsman
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman