Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about Council tax arrears. There is not enough evidence of fault by the Council to warrant our involvement.

The complaint

1. Miss Y complains the Council did not correctly allocate a payment she made to her Council tax account. Miss Y said the Council told her she is now in arrears, which she believes is incorrect.
2. Miss Y said this has impacted her financially and caused a negative emotional impact.

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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 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

4. I considered information provided by the complainant.
5. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

6. Miss Y complained the Council told her she is in arrears for Council tax, but she believes this to be incorrect.
7. Miss Y said she has more than one Council tax account due to a change of address. Miss Y said she mistakenly made a payment to the incorrect account, but this should have been allocated to the correct one, after she contacted the Council about it.
8. Despite this, the Council told Miss Y she is in arrears, and a payment is due.
9. The Council responded to Miss Y’s complaint with a breakdown of payments made on both of her Council tax accounts. This explained its reasoning for saying Miss Y is in arrears.
10. The Council’s response included confirmation a payment was reallocated from the incorrect account, but an outstanding balance remains.
11. 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 a Council 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 Council made.
12. Based on the information available, there is not enough evidence of fault by the Council to warrant our involvement and therefore we will not investigate.

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Final decision

13. We will not investigate Miss Y’s complaint because there is not enough evidence of fault by the Council to warrant our involvement.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman