Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the way the Council allocates payments for council tax arrears. This is because there is insufficient evidence of fault by the Council.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I refer to as Mrs X, complains the Council only uses her payments to cover council tax arrears which means she is constantly getting into arrears with the council tax for the current tax year. Mrs X says she is caught in a vicious cycle. Mrs X is particularly concerned about the way the Council treated payments she made in 2019/20.

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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 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. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided by Mrs X and the Council. This includes the complaint correspondence and a copy of the payment arrangement letter from June 2019. I also considered our Assessment Code.

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My assessment

4. The law says people must pay their council tax as billed. If they do not they may lose the right to pay by instalment and councils can take recovery action.
5. Mrs X has had council tax arrears for many years. In 2019 Mrs X did not make the payments due for April, May and June. She lost the right to pay that year by instalment. In June the Council set up a payment plan. The letter said Mrs X had agreed to pay £250 a month, until 2021, and the arrangement covered all the arrears, including the current year (2019/20).
6. Mrs X made the payments until August 2020. The payments she made reduced the arrears from £5050 to £1800. In July 2020 the Council reset the instalments for that year (2020/21) and asked for payment from August 2020. It also asked for £50 a month towards arrears.
7. During 2020 and 2021 Mrs X had difficult family circumstances. Mrs X stopped paying her council tax and has not paid anything since August 2020. Mrs X currently owes £10,438; this is council tax owed from 2016. Since 2019 the Council has asked her to make new payment plans for both the current year and arrears. It also signposted Mrs X to sources of debt advice.
8. Mrs X’s main complaint is that the Council lead her to believe that her payments in 2019/20 were for the current year and arrears. She says she made all the payments but, as the Council used them all for arrears, she ended up with more debt.
9. I will not start an investigation because there is insufficient evidence of fault by the Council. I have considered the June 2019 letter and it explains that the £250 is for all the arrears which included that tax year (2019/20). The Council accepts Mrs X made the payments but she stopped making them from August 2020 and she did not make additional payments from April 2020 to cover her council tax for 2020/21. In addition, even if the Council had used more of the payments for 2019/20 it would not change the overall position. This is because Mrs X would then owe more for the arrears that accrued from 2012.
10. I appreciate Mrs X has had a difficult time, especially in 2020 and 2021, but the reason she has arrears is not due to the way the Council allocated payments but because she has not paid enough council tax from 2012 and has not made any payments since August 2020. Mrs X has expressed concern to the Council about how it would treat new payments but I have seen letters in which the Council has explained how much she needs to pay for current year and for arrears.
11. Mrs X could, as the Council suggested, either seek debt advice or benefit advice to see if there is a way to boost her income.

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Final decision

12. We will not investigate this complaint because there is insufficient evidence of fault by the Council.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman