London Borough of Lewisham (23 007 172)
Category : Benefits and tax > Council tax
Decision : Closed after initial enquiries
Decision date : 13 Sep 2023
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council closing Mr X’s council tax account as there is insufficient injustice caused to Mr X to warrant our further involvement.
The complaint
- Mr X complains the Council closed down his council tax account and opened a new one in another person’s name without consulting him. Mr X had to make several phone calls to the Council, including one that lasted 45 minutes, to find out what had taken place.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
- The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
- We investigate 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 continue an investigation if we decide any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))
How I considered this complaint
- I considered information provided by the complainant.
- I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
- In its complaint responses to Mr X, the Council said it took the action it did on his council tax account as another person contacted it to say they were moving into the property. Mr X remains unhappy with the Council's explanation and would like it to change its procedures and provide him with an apology.
- While I recognise Mr X remains unhappy and was put to some time and trouble, from our perspective, the impact on him, what we call injustice, is not sufficient to warrant our further involvement in this matter. We will not therefore investigate.
Final decision
- We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because he is not caused a sufficient level of personal injustice to justify our involvement.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman