Summary: Ms X complained about how the Council dealt with her application for a test and trace support payment. There were avoidable delays in how the Council decided Ms X’s application and how it responded to her complaint. This caused avoidable distress and frustration to Ms X for which the Council agreed to apologise and pay a financial remedy.

The complaint

1. Ms X complains the Council wrongly refused to pay her a test and trace support payment after she was told to self-isolate by the NHS Test and Trace service in December 2021. She also says the Council took too long to decide her application and did not provide contact details for her to chase her application. As a result, she says she missed out on the payment of £500. She wants the Council to apologise and pay her the support payment.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word fault to refer to these. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint. I refer to this as ‘injustice’. If there has been fault which has caused an injustice, we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)
3. We consider whether there was fault in the way an organisation made its decision. If there was no fault in the decision making, we cannot question the outcome. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended)
4. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate. We cannot investigate late complaints unless we decide there are good reasons. Late complaints are when someone takes more than 12 months to complain to us about something a council has done. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26B and 34D, as amended)
5. This complaint involves events that occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Government introduced a range of new and frequently updated rules and guidance during this time. We can consider whether the council followed the relevant legislation, guidance and our published “Good Administrative Practice during the response to COVID-19”.
6. If we are satisfied with an organisation’s actions or proposed actions, we can complete our investigation and issue a decision statement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 30(1B) and 34H(i), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

7. I considered:
• the information Ms X provided and discussed the complaint with her;
• supporting information provided by the Council; and
• relevant guidance.
8. Ms X and the Council had an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I considered any comments received before making a final decision.

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What I found

Test and trace support payments

9. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Government introduced a £500 payment to support eligible people when they needed to self-isolate. Councils were responsible for deciding applications and making payments based on the government guidance.
10. The rules about who were eligible for support payments changed during the life of the scheme. The Government issued updated guidance (‘The test and trace support payment scheme - implementation guidance for local authorities in England’ version 2.0) in August 2021. This said someone was eligible for a support payment if they:
1. had been told to self-isolate by the NHS Test and Trace service or NHS COVID-19 app because they had tested positive for COIVD-19 or were not fully vaccinated and told to self-isolate because they had been a close contact of someone else who had tested positive;
2. had responded to messages from NHS Test and Trace and provided any legally required information (including details of recent close contacts);
3. were employed or self-employed;
4. were unable to work from home and would lose income because they had to self-isolate; and
5. received one of several listed welfare benefits.
11. The guidance also told councils they should:
• check someone was required to self-isolate and whether they had responded to messages from NHS Test and Trace by checking an online ‘eligibility checker’ provided for that purpose; and
• pay support payments within three days of verifying applications.

Council’s complaints procedure

12. The Council has a two-sage complaints procedure for most complaints:
• Stage 1 – a response from the service complained about within 15 working days.
• Stage 2 – a response within 25 working days from the Council’s complaints team.

What happened

13. Ms X applied to the Council for a test and trace support payment in late December 2021, after having been told by NHS Test and Trace to self-isolate a few days earlier due to a positive COVID-19 test.
14. As part of her application, Ms X provided all the required supporting evidence of her employment and income. She ticked the box next to the statement ‘Please confirm that you have contacted NHS test and trace to complete the engagement process’ on her application form.
15. In early February 2022, Ms X complained to the Council that she had not heard anything about her application and had not received the support payment.
16. The Council replied four days later and told Ms X she was not eligible for the payment because she “did not complete the engagement journey with the NHS Test and Trace service”. The Council told Ms X she should contact the NHS COVID-19 service is she disputed whether she had ‘engaged’.
17. The same day, Ms X told the Council she wanted to continue with her complaint because she believed she was entitled to the payment.
18. The Council replied a few days later, confirming that it had decided Ms X was not eligible because she had not completed engagement with NHS Test and Trace.
19. At the end of February 2022, Ms X asked the Council to escalate her complaint to the second stage of its complaints procedure. She also chased the Council for a response in mid-March 2022.
20. The Council sent Ms X its final response to her complaint in mid-June 2022. Again, it confirmed that Ms X was not eligible for the support payment because she had not completed the engagement process with NHS Test and Trace. The Council directed Ms X to the Ombudsman if she was not happy with how it handled her complaint.
21. Ms X complained to the Ombudsman in February 2023. Ms X said that she did not complain to us sooner because of a family bereavement and the impact this had on her health.

My findings

22. Ms X’s complaint about how the Council considered her application from late 2021 is late, as this happened more than 12 months before she complained to us. However, I am satisfied there were delays in how the Council responded to her complaint and this is a good reason to consider her complaint now.
23. The evidence shows the Council checked the information Ms X provided, including her engagement with NHS Test and Trace, in line with the Government guidance. The Eligibility Checker provided by the NHS showed that Ms X had not completed the engagement process. I am satisfied the Council made its decision that Ms X was not eligible for the support payment without fault and in line with both the evidence and guidance. Therefore, I cannot question the outcome.
24. The guidance does not set any timescales for how long it should take to verify support payment applications. However, the guidance does say that once verified councils should make payments within three days. Based on this, and the purpose of the scheme, I am satisfied that the Council should have made a decision about Ms X’s application promptly after she applied.
25. There is no evidence the Council decided Ms X’s application until after she complained, over a month after she applied. It is also not clear how long it would have taken the Council to decide Ms X’s application if she had not complained when she did. Therefore, I am satisfied there was an avoidable delay in the Council deciding Ms X’s application. This delay was fault which caused Ms X some avoidable distress and frustration while waiting for the Council’s decision.
26. Ms X said the Council’s website did not mention the requirement to ‘engage’ with the NHS Test and Trace process to be eligible for a support payment. She also said the Council’s website about the support payments did not provide any contact details for querying or chasing up applications.
27. The information on the Council’s website at a time was a simplified version of the scheme rules, which changed during the life of the scheme. It was also similar to descriptions about the scheme provided by charities and advice organisations around the same time. The Council did not have to include all the detail about the scheme on its website and the Council did ask about engagement with NHS Test and Trace in its application form. There was no fault with the information the Council shared on its website.
28. The requirement to provide information to NHS Test and Trace, including recent close contacts, was separate to the support payment scheme. While engaging with that process was a condition of receiving a payment, people had a responsibility to do so even if they did not apply for a payment. Therefore, I am satisfied that, if there was a failure on the part of the Council to include this detail in its website, this would not have caused Ms X’s decision about whether to provide close contact information with NHS Test and Trace.
29. Similarly, there was no requirement for councils to provide contact details for the team dealing with support payment applications. Given the pressures of the COVID-19 pandemic on council services and the different working arrangements necessary at the time, councils may have had good reasons for not providing such contact details. I am not satisfied the failure to provide contact details for support payment applications was fault. In any case, Ms X was able to contact the Council though its complaints process.
30. The Council responded promptly to Ms X’s Stage 1 complaint; well inside the timescales in its complaints procedure. However, there were significant delays at Stage 2 which took three times longer than it should have done. Ms X’s complaint was not complicated, and I have seen no good reasons for this delay. The delay in responding to Ms X’s complaint at Stage 2 was fault which caused Ms X further avoidable frustration.

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Agreed action

31. Within one month of my final decision, the Council will:
• apologise to Ms X for the distress and frustration caused by the delays in processing her application and responding to her Stage 2 complaint; and
• pay Ms X £150 to recognise that avoidable distress and frustration.
32. The Council should provide us with evidence it has complied with the above actions.
33. I have not made any service improvement recommendations because the test and trace support payment scheme has been closed since mid-2022.

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Final decision

34. I have completed my investigation. There were avoidable delays in how the Council decided Ms X’s application and how it responded to her complaint. This caused avoidable distress and frustration to Ms X for which the Council agreed to apologise and pay a financial remedy.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman