Sheffield City Council (24 022 447)
Category : Benefits and tax > Council tax
Decision : Closed after initial enquiries
Decision date : 05 Jun 2025
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint about her council tax payments. This is because there is not enough evidence of fault to justify an investigation.
The complaint
- Mrs X complains she paid her council tax but the Council did not apply the payments to her account. This led to extra charges and bailiff action.
- Mrs X also complains that the Council took too long to deal with her complaint.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
- 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 there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))
- It is not a good use of public resources to investigate complaints about complaint procedures, if we are unable to deal with the substantive issue.
How I considered this complaint
- I considered information provided by Mrs X and the Council.
- I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
- Mrs X made two payments to the Council in April and May 2024. She did not include her council tax reference. The Council says this meant it did not know which account to allocate payment to. It therefore placed the payments in its suspense account, in line with its standard practice. There is not enough evidence of fault in this regard.
- Mrs X’s council tax fell into arrears because the Council could not link the payments to her account. It started recovery action. Once staff matched the payments to her account, it stopped the recovery process. The Council says it did not add any charges. There is not enough evidence of fault to investigate.
- It is not a good use of public resources to investigate complaints about complaint procedures, if we are unable to deal with the substantive issue
Final decision
- We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because there is not enough evidence of fault to justify an investigation.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman