Summary: We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint about enforcement action and information the Council provided to her. This is because we are satisfied with the actions the Council has taken to put things right.

The complaint

1. Mrs X complained the Council:
• provided her with incorrect information;
• wrongly escalated to enforcement action; and
• refused to log her concerns as a formal complaint.
2. Mrs X said this caused significant avoidable distress, and she spent considerable time and effort to resolve the matters. She wanted the Council to:
• acknowledge its alleged fault and the impact caused;
• review its internal processes;
• improve its communication;
• provide a goodwill payment; and
• improve its complaint handling.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word fault to refer to these. We provide a free service but must use public money carefully. We may decide not to start or continue with an investigation if we are satisfied with the actions an organisation has taken or proposes to take. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(7), as amended)

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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. Mrs X complained to the Council regarding the matters in paragraph one. The Council responded to Mrs X and:
• explained the circumstances which led to the issues;
• acknowledged there had been errors; and
• apologised.
7. The Council also confirmed the following:
• additional training would be provided to the employee who provided Mrs X with incorrect information;
• all court costs and recovery action had been removed from Mrs X’s account;
• Mrs X’s credit history would not be affected; and
• it had contacted a third-party customer to prevent further incorrect payments in the future.
8. The Council explained it would not accept Mrs X’s concerns into its complaints process. It said this was because it had explained the circumstances which led to the issues and had placed her back into the financial position she would have been in, had the error not occurred.
9. In our view, the Council’s response to Mrs X represents a proportionate outcome and we could not achieve any further meaningful outcome. For these reasons, we will not investigate this complaint.
10. 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. We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint the Council declined to issue a formal complaint response.

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Final decision

11. We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because we are satisfied with the actions the Council has taken to remedy these matters.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman