Somerset West and Taunton Council (21 002 744)
Category : Benefits and tax > Council tax
Decision : Closed after initial enquiries
Decision date : 13 Jul 2021
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: Ms X complains about the Council’s decision to recover an outstanding debt from a council tax credit. We will not investigate this complaint because there is no evidence of fault causing injustice.
The complaint
- Ms X complains about the Council’s decision to recover an outstanding debt from a council tax credit.
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 considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
- I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
- The complainant has commented on my draft decision.
My assessment
- Ms X is the executor of her brother’s estate. She says that a council tax credit due to the estate was reduced by pre-existing council rent arrears. She says that the Council should have left her sufficient to pay for the funeral.
- The Council says that their policy is to offset any debts from credit owed on any other account. The Council says they are unaware of any requirement to leave sufficient for a funeral.
- The Ombudsman considers that there is no injustice from offsetting a debt from a credit as the debt would remain owing if they did not do this. There is no requirement to leave sufficient to pay for a funeral but the Council does have a power to assist with any such payments in certain circumstances.
- Ms X may make a separate application if she wishes.
Final decision
- I do not intend to investigate this complaint because there is no evidence of fault by the Council causing injustice.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman