Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about council tax bills. There is no evidence of fault, and any injustice is not significant enough to warrant our involvement. Moreover, any investigation would not lead to a different outcome.

The complaint

1. Ms Y says the council tax bills the Council provided lacked transparency and were sent to the wrong address.
2. Ms Y also says when she called the Council to complain, it gave her incorrect information and failed to respond to her complaint for over five months.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
4. The Ombudsman investigates complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’, which we call ‘fault’. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint, which we call ‘injustice’. We provide a free service but must use public money carefully. We do not start or may decide not to continue with an investigation if we decide:

• there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating, or
• any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement, or
• further investigation would not lead to a different outcome, (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A (6))

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How I considered this complaint

5. I considered information provided by the Ms Y and the Council.
6. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

7. The Council has explained Ms Y failed to update her address details when she moved. Ms Y has not provided any information to dispute this. Therefore, the Council is not at fault for the bills being sent to the wrong address.
8. Ms Y has also not suffered any financial loss as these bills included charges for eight months and two years earlier. Therefore, any lack of transparency or delay claimed by Ms Y has not caused her significant injustice to warrant an investigation.
9. We are also unlikely to ask the Council to pay the £100 Ms Y asked for and would only ask it to apologise for any delay in responding. The Council has already done this. Therefore, an investigation would not lead to a different outcome.
10. In cases where we do not investigate the matters in a complaint, we do not separately investigate the Council’s complaint handling process.

Final decision

11. We will not investigate Ms Y’s complaint because there is no evidence of fault by the Council, and any injustice is not significant enough to warrant our involvement. Moreover, any investigation would not lead to a different outcome

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman