Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about Ms X being unable to set up her self-service online portal account to manage her council tax. This is because the Council is still actively working on resolving the issue Ms X has with registering her account and it is reasonable for her to continue to engage with the Council.

The complaint

1. Ms X complains she cannot set up her self-service online portal account to manage her council tax. She says the Council has refused to help her and has ignored the information she provided to help them resolve the technical issues.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’, which we call ‘fault’. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse effect on the person making the complaint, which we call ‘injustice’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We may decide not to start an investigation if the tests set out in our Assessment Code are not met. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. Ms X tired to open an online portal account to allow her to manage her council tax account. She was unable to complete the registration. She says it is frustrating she has been denied the ability to manager her council tax account using this tool, which other residents have access to.
6. Ms X attended the Council’s office and demonstrated to an officer the problems she was having trying to register her account. The officer told Ms X they needed to escalate the problem to an internal technical resource.
7. In response to Ms X’s complaint, the Council said it has worked with its IT service and software suppliers to understand the reasons for the problems Ms X was having. The Council said it had so far been unable to replicate the problem. The Council said it was now working on the error logging reports to see if this would identify the issues.
8. The Council also asked Ms X to attend the Council’s office again so that it can try and set up the online account with her and a senior officer present. This will allow the Council to better understand the issues. In response to our enquiries, the Council said it had made further attempts to register Ms X using its test system but without success. The Council has provided the error logs generated by this to its software supplier.
9. It is clear the Council is willing to work with Ms X to resolve the matter and that it is actively trying to identify what the problem is. We accept the Council cannot resolve the issue without first identifying exactly what the problem is with registering Ms X's account. Therefore, the Council’s offer for Ms X to attend the office to try and set up her account with its technical officers present is a sensible and proportionate one.
10. We recognise Ms X has already attended the Council’s office once to demonstrate the registration issues she was having. However, Ms X previously demonstrated the issues to an officer who likely did not have any technical knowledge. Therefore, it is reasonable for Ms X to continue to engage with the Council to allow them to gather the necessary information to identify the problem, which in turn will help it resolve the problem. It is also clear the Council is continuing to work with its software supplier to fix the problem.

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Final decision

11. We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint because the Council is still actively working on fixing the issue Ms X has with registering her account and it is reasonable for her to continue to engage with the Council.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman