Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about how the Council handled Mr X’s application for a council tax reduction, and his resulting complaint. Any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement, and we could not add to the investigation the Council has already done.

The complaint

1. Mr X complained the Council overlooked his council tax reduction application and did not properly consider his resulting complaint about the matter.
2. Mr X said this caused distress, time and trouble.
3. Mr X wants the Council to provide a symbolic financial remedy to recognise his experience.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

4. People may complain to us about injustice caused by ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’ by a public organisation we could investigate. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26A(1) or section 34C(1)(a)).
5. We provide a free service but must use public money carefully. We do not start or continue an investigation if we decide any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement, or we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), or section 34B(8)).
6. We will not normally investigate complaint handling if we are not investigating the rest of the complaint. This is because there is not usually enough injustice to justify us doing so. We collect information about particularly poor complaint handling practice and report this back to organisations. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), or section 34B(8)).

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How I considered this complaint

7. I considered information provided by Mr X.
8. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

9. The law means we can choose only to investigate a complaint where the person has suffered serious loss, harm, or distress as a direct result of faults or failures by the body complained about. We will not normally investigate a complaint where the alleged loss or injustice is not a serious or significant matter.
10. I recognise the circumstances of Mr X’s complaint have affected him, but this is not significant enough to warrant us investigating.
11. When responding to Mr X’s stage two complaint, the Council acknowledged fault, apologised where it felt appropriate and took learning. Given these findings, it is unlikely we could add to the investigation the Council has already done.
12. Additionally, we will not investigate the way the Council handled the complaint and correspondence here because we are satisfied it did not cause enough separate injustice to warrant it.

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Final decision

13. We will not investigate this complaint because any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement and we could not add to the investigation the Council has already done.

Investigator’s decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman