Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about Mr X’s application for a test and trace support payment. There is not enough injustice to Mr X for the Ombudsman to devote time and public money to investigating.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains about the Council’s handling of his application for a test and trace support payment. He says the Council: failed to decide the application within 10 days; did not communicate with him properly so he had to chase matters; did not telephone him when asked; lost his documents including bank statements; and did not deal properly with his complaint about the matter. Mr X says this worsened his existing anxiety and depression and the Council was dismissive of that.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. The Ombudsman investigates 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 may decide not to continue with an investigation if we decide any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6))
3. We normally expect someone to refer the matter to the Information Commissioner if they have a complaint about data protection. However, we may decide to investigate if we think there are good reasons. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

4. I considered information provided by the complainant and copy complaint correspondence from the Council.
5. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

6. Mr X had to self-isolate from 6 to 13 November 2021. The Council says it received Mr X’s application for a test and trace support payment on 11 November. It approved the application 25 days later, on 6 December 2021.
7. I have seen no evidence for Mr X’s claim the Council should have decided his application within 10 days. The government’s guidance and information for councils did not require councils to decide applications in any particular timescale.
8. In that context, and in the context that the Council approved the application in just over three weeks, I do not consider any alleged problems during the process disadvantaged Mr X significantly enough to warrant the Ombudsman devoting time and public money to pursuing the complaint. I appreciate waiting for the decision would have been worrying but given the time in which the matter was resolved, this is not a significant enough injustice in itself to investigate.
9. Mr X is also dissatisfied the Council did not put his complaint about the matter into its complaint procedure. The Council replied to the complaint then told Mr X he could approach the Ombudsman. So I do not consider Mr X suffered significant disadvantage from the complaint not going through the formal complaint procedure. Anyway, 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.
10. Mr X says there was a data breach because he believes the Council lost documents he supplied, including bank statements. The Council denies losing anything and says it just asked Mr X for another bank statement covering the relevant period. The Information Commissioner can consider whether a data breach happened. As we are not investigating the rest of the complaint, it would not be appropriate to investigate the alleged data breach by itself, when the Information Commissioner has the expertise and powers to deal with it.

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Final decision

11. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint. This is because there is not enough injustice and it is more appropriate for the Information Commissioner to consider the alleged data breach.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman