Summary: We will not investigate Miss X’s complaint about the Council’s handling of her council tax account. The Tribunal is considering the matter and there is not enough evidence of fault in the Council’s enforcement action.

The complaint

1. Miss X complains about the Council’s handling of her council tax account and says the Council wrongly assessed her income. She complains the Council rejected her payment plan without consideration of her vulnerabilities. She also complains it continued enforcement action during an active complaint and forced her to make payment.
2. Miss X says the matter has had a significant emotional and financial impact on her. She wants the Council to acknowledge its failures in the handling of her case and apologise for the distress caused. She also wants the Council to reimburse the payment she made and to review its enforcement process.

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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, or
• there is no worthwhile outcome achievable by our investigation.

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

4. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
5. We cannot investigate a complaint if someone has appealed to a tribunal about the same matter. We also cannot investigate a complaint if in doing so we would overlap with the role of a tribunal to decide something which has been or could have been referred to it to resolve using its own powers. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(6)(a), as amended)
6. The Valuation Tribunal handles appeals about council tax.

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How I considered this complaint

7. I considered information provided by Miss X and the Council.
8. I also considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

9. We cannot investigate the Council’s assessment of Miss X’s council tax. This is because the Valuation Tribunal is considering this decision. Therefore, the law prevents us from investigating.

Repayment plan

10. A taxpayer can ask for a payment arrangement, however it will be up to the council’s discretion what sort of arrangement to accept. Typically the council will look to have the debt cleared by the end of the financial year and, if the debt is for a previous year, will also want to see payments for the current year kept up.
11. The Council rejected Miss X’s payment arrangement offer because it would take over 24 months to clear the debt. It referred Miss X to debt advice services and offered a payment plan to clear the debt balance by the end of the year.
12. The Council considered Miss X’s request and made a decision it was entitled to. There is not enough evidence of fault to justify us investigating.

Enforcement action

13. The Council can take recovery action for unpaid council tax where it has obtained a liability order, including instructing enforcement agents. The law does not prevent a council from continuing recovery while a dispute is ongoing.
14. Miss X’s complaint about her council tax does not prevent the Council from continuing recovery action. There is not enough evidence of fault on this point to justify us investigating.

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Final decision

15. We will not investigate Miss X’s complaint because the Tribunal is considering the matter and because there is not enough evidence of fault in the Council’s other actions.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman