Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s failure to inform Mrs X about claiming a council tax discount which she was not entitled to for over three years. There is insufficient evidence of fault which would warrant an investigation.

The complaint

1. Mrs X complained about the Council only informing her that she had received single person discount to which she was not entitled in 2025 after she had received it from late 2021. She says the Council should have identified earlier that she had claimed the discount in error when she completed a form incorrectly in 2021. The Council is recovering the debt for overpayment on a monthly basis which she says is causing her considerable stress.

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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 or continue an investigation if we decide:

• there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating, or
• 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))

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How I considered this complaint

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

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My assessment

5. Mrs X says she completed a council, tax form in error when she was dealing with her late mother’s estate in 2021. The form entitled her to claim single person’s discount and she completed it confirming sole occupancy. In 2025 the Council says it was alerted by the Nation Fraud Initiative - which is a government organisation, that data indicated she was not entitled to the discount.
6. The Council subsequently took action to recover the discount which it told Mrs X she was not entitled to. It did not prosecute her for fraud but told her that she had received council tax bills in subsequent years which clearly showed she was being awarded the discount and the onus was on her to notify the Council of this error on her part. The Council is currently reclaiming the discount on a monthly basis.
7. The Ombudsman is not an appeal body. This means we do not take a second look at a decision to decide if it was wrong. Instead, we look at the processes an organisation followed to make its decision. If we consider it followed those processes correctly, we cannot question whether the decision was right or wrong, regardless of whether someone disagrees with the decision the organisation made.
8. Mrs X accepts that she completed the form incorrectly and did not inform the Council of the payments over the subsequent years. Councils as billing authorities can reclaim discounts where there was no procedural error on their part. There is no evidence of fault in the Council’s actions in this matter.

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Final decision

9. We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s failure to inform Mrs X about claiming a council tax discount which she was not entitled to for over three years. There is insufficient evidence of fault which would warrant an investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman