Summary: Ms X complained about the way the Council dealt with her Council Tax account and issued her with a summons. The Council has accepted it was at fault. It has already apologised to Ms X and offered her a payment in recognition of the distress caused which is suitable action for it to take. So, we have ended our investigation into the complaint.

The complaint

1. Ms X complains about the way the Council dealt with her Council Tax account and issued her with a summons. In particular Ms X says the Council:
• Failed to implement a direct debit mandate for her account.
• Issued a court summons despite confirming the direct debit mandate was set up and it was aware of issues with its e-billing system.
• Poorly communicated with her throughout including delayed responses and conflicting information about court proceedings.
• Failed to properly court handle arrangements on the date of her court hearing.
• Failed to clearly tell her it had withdrawn the summons.
2. Ms X says the Council’s actions have caused her significant stress and anxiety and time taken to try and resolve the matter.

Back to top

The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. 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:

• we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation, or
• further investigation would not lead to a different outcome.

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

4. We cannot investigate a complaint about the start of court action or what happened in court. (Local Government Act 1974, Schedule 5/5A, paragraph 1/3, as amended)

Back to top

What I have and have not investigated

5. I have investigated Ms X’s complaints about the Council failing to implement a direct debit mandate, poor communication and the issues with its e-billing system.
6. I have not investigated Ms X’s complaints concerning the conflicting information about court proceedings, a failure to handle court hearing arrangements and a failure to notify her the summons had been withdrawn. This is because they are about the conduct of court proceedings as paragraph four explains.

Back to top

How I considered this complaint

7. I considered evidence provided by Ms X and the Council as well as relevant law, policy and guidance.
8. Ms X and the Council had an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I considered any comments before making a final decision.

Back to top

What I found

Council tax recovery

9. There are laws and regulations that control how councils collect council tax payments and how they can make people pay council tax they owe. (Council Tax [Administration and Enforcement] Regulations 1992)
10. The council tax bill for the year is due on 1 April. A council will usually collect this through monthly instalments. If a person who has to pay council tax misses any instalment, the council will send them a reminder. If they still do not pay, or miss another payment, then they must pay all they owe (that is the full amount for the rest of the year).
11. Councils who want to recover unpaid council tax have to ask the magistrate’s court for a liability order against people it thinks owe it the money. Once a council has a liability order it can take action to recover the money, and any court costs owed.

What happened in this case

12. The following is a summary of key events relevant to my consideration of the complaint. It does not include everything that happened.
13. In 2024 Ms X made some of her Council Tax payments late and received reminders from the Council for payments. In August 2024 Ms X applied to pay the rest of her Council Tax balance by a monthly direct debit. The Council could not set up the direct debit and questioned the names on the account. Ms X provided the information and received confirmation of the direct debit application in October 2024. Ms X received a court summons as no payments had been made in November and December 2024. Ms X made a £500 payment to cover the missing payments. Ms X emailed the Council to advise she had set up a direct debit for her payments so should not have received the summons.
14. Ms X says she tried to attend the court hearing in December 2024 but faced confusion from the Council over the arrangements. The Council withdrew the summons and court costs from Ms X’s account. Ms X complained to the Council at stage 1 of the complaint procedure in January 2025. The Council responded and apologised for the summons and issues with the direct debit. Ms X remained unhappy with the Council’s response as she considered it had not responded to all her concerns. Ms X escalated her complaint to stage 2.
15. The Council responded at stage 2 in February 2025. It investigated Ms X’s concerns and confirmed:
• It could not set up her initial direct debit request in August 2024 as the payee name did not match the Council Tax account. So, it requested confirmation of the liable parties at the property.
• Ms X provided the liable party names but due to the discrepancy over names it could not set up the original direct debit. The Council indicated to Ms X she needed to make a new direct debit instruction.
• In September 2024 it sent an email to Ms X confirming an arrangement had been implemented on her account. But it was not a direct debit arrangement according to the comments on an email it sent to Ms X in August, and it sent a payment plan to Ms X’s portal account.
• It sent reminders to Ms X during November 2024 as there had been no payments and updated her Council Tax account with the liable names.
• It sent a summons to Ms X in early December 2024 as it had not received any payments according to the payment arrangement created in September 2024.
• It accepted the second direct debit should have been applied to Ms X’s account when received in October 2024. As this did not happen the Council removed the summons and subsequent costs from her account. It confirmed the account balance including the £500 payment made in December 2024 and offered to allow Ms X to pay the remaining amount over several months.
• Officers called the Council Tax team to try and adjourn Ms X’s court case. But due to the time of Ms X’s contact on the day of the hearing the case could not be withdrawn as the court was in session.
• It found there had been a recent issue in the Council’s Council Tax data base system identified by its software provider. This had been caused by a regular update which affected accounts on e-billing so that bills/adjustment notices which should have been sent to email accounts were not sent. Officers were unaware of this as the onscreen information appeared correct.
• The issue was resolved in a later system update in September 2024. It meant the e-arrangement notice sent to Ms X in September 2024 was in fact not produced and sent to her portal account. So, Ms X would have been unaware of the amounts due for payment.
• It has corrected all accounts affected by the system error by removing any recovery action and costs. In Ms X’s case the action to correct her account was taken in January 2024 when the Council received her complaint.
• It accepted some undue delays in applying the direct debit instruction received in October 2024 on Ms X’s account. It accepted Ms X did not receive an adequate explanation why the initial direct debit could not be applied due to the discrepancy with names. And information that she needed to make a new direct debit instruction.
• The software issue recently discovered also caused a problem on Ms X’s account as officers were unaware the e-billing document had not been sent to her portal account. This resulted in the summons and liability order incurring costs on her account as she would have been unaware of the amounts to pay.
• It partly upheld the complaint and apologised to Ms X for the delay over the direct debit and the resulting actions. It offered Ms X a £100 compensation payment.

My assessment

16. The documents provided show the Council has investigated Ms X’s complaint and established where there were issues when dealing with her account. It has acknowledged the direct debit request made in October 2024 was not implemented. And it would have been compounded by the issues caused to its software system for those on e-billing accounts such as Ms X. It has accepted it was at fault, apologised and offered Ms X £100 in compensation.
17. As the matter has been robustly investigated by the Council and the software issue has been resolved I do not consider we could add anything to the Council’s investigation or achieve a different outcome for Ms X. The Council’s apology and offer of £100 compensation is in line with our Guidance on Remedies. It has also offered Ms X the opportunity to pay her remaining account balance over several months which is action we would have recommended. I do not consider therefore any further investigation will lead to a different outcome for Ms X. So, I am discontinuing my investigation into Ms X’s complaint.

Back to top

Decision

18. The Council has accepted it was at fault, apologised to Ms X and offered a suitable remedy payment. So, I am ending my investigation into the complaint.

Investigator’s decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

Back to top

Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman