Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the complainant’s council tax because there is insufficient evidence of fault for one part of the complaint and insufficient evidence of injustice for the other part.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I refer to as Mrs X, questions whether she owes the council tax as stated by the Council. She says the Council has not proved she owes the council tax and she thinks there might have been some fraudulent activity. Mrs X wants to be sure she owes the council tax.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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 an investigation if we decide:

• there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating, or
• any fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained, or
• any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement.

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6))

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided Mrs X and the Council. This includes the complaint correspondence. I considered our Assessment Code and comments Mrs X made in reply to a draft of this decision.

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My assessment

4. The Council issued Mrs X with a council tax bill for 2020/21. Mrs X did not pay as billed and arrears arose on the account. In March 2021 the Council agreed to add the arrears of £385 to the amount payable for 2021/22. This meant Mrs X was required to pay about £216 a month during 2021/22.
5. After the Council made this arrangement it found it had made an error. For six months in 2020 it wrongly added someone else’s council tax payments to Mrs X’s council tax account. The Council removed £660 that it had wrongly allocated to her account. This meant Mrs X’s arrears increased by £660 and the payment plan was not enough to cover the current council tax and the arrears. The Council increased the monthly payment to about £312. It apologised for the error, explained it had changed the system to prevent similar errors, and provided a breakdown of all the payments Mrs X had made. The Council says Mrs X is currently paying in line with the old bill, at the lower amount, and it has issued a reminder.
6. Mrs X says the Council has not demonstrated that she owes the extra money and she says she should not have to pay for a council error. She says the Council has refused to provide a breakdown showing all the movement in and out of the account.
7. I will not investigate the complaint that the Council has not shown that Mrs X owes the higher level of arrears because there is insufficient evidence of fault. The Council has provided a breakdown of the amount Mrs X was due to pay, her payments, and the direct debits which were reversed by her bank. It has also explained that £660 was wrongly added and then removed. Mrs X can check the council tax bills and cross-reference them with the payments she has made. There is nothing more I would have expected the Council to do or say to explain why Mrs X has arrears. Mrs X can make a Freedom of Information request to the Council if she thinks there is information it has refused to provide.
8. The Council made an error because it allocated payments made by someone else to Mrs X’s account. I will not investigate this issue because there is insufficient evidence of injustice. The Council has apologised, explained what went wrong and taken steps to ensure it does not repeat the mistake. In addition, the error would not have had any impact if Mrs X had paid her council tax as billed. If Mrs X had paid the council tax in accordance with the bill then the wrong payments would just have created a credit on the account. The arrears Mrs X is facing are not caused by the erroneous payments but because she did not pay as stated in the 2020/21 council bill. The complaint reply shows that Mrs X made payments but they were not consistent with the amount and dates stipulated in the bill.

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Final decision

9. I will not investigate this complaint because there is insufficient evidence of fault and injustice.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman