Summary: Miss B complains that the Council has failed to deal with her Housing Benefit claim properly, because it has taken too long to deal with her claims, has lost documents and has not responded to her complaint. The Council took too long to deal with her Housing Benefit claim because it lost or did not process information Miss B provided. Miss B had to wait four months longer than necessary for her claim to be processed. The Council should pay Miss B £100 for the unnecessary delay she suffered.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I shall refer to as Miss B, complains that the Council has failed to deal with her Housing Benefit claim properly. Miss B says the Council has taken too long to deal with her claims. it has lost documents Miss B has provided as evidence, and it has not responded to or dealt with her complaint.

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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. The law says we cannot normally investigate a complaint when someone can appeal to a tribunal. However, we may decide to investigate if we consider it would be unreasonable to expect the person to appeal. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(6)(a), as amended)
4. If we are satisfied with a council’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

5. I have spoken to Miss B about her complaint and considered the information she has provided to the Ombudsman. I have also considered the Council’s response to her complaint and its response to my enquiries.
6. I have written to Miss B and the Council with a draft decision and considered all comments.

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What I found

7. The council should decide an Housing Benefit claim within 14 days of receiving all the information and evidence it requires or as soon as reasonably practicable after that. Generally, if a council takes more than 28 days without any good reason, we would be concerned about unnecessary delay.

What happened

8. Miss B made a claim for Housing Benefit. She made a mistake on the claim form. The Council refused her claim and said if Miss B submitted a new claim it would honour her original claim date.
9. Miss B submitted a new claim for Housing Benefit. The Council asked Miss B to supply a range of information. It also asked Miss B’s landlord to give them information.
10. The Council decided to reject Miss B’s new Housing Benefit claim because it said she had not provided information about her rent. Miss B did not receive the letter telling her about the decision.
11. Miss B telephoned the Council to find out the status of her claim. The Council told her a letter has been sent to her on 3 September. The Council told Miss B that her claim had been rejected as details of the rent had not been provided. Miss B said she would wait for the letter to arrive.
12. On 25 September 2018, Miss B complained that the Council had not replied to her about her Housing Benefit claim and she had not received the letter dated 3 September. She asked for a copy of the decision to be sent to her.
13. The next day the Council looked at her complaint. The Council decided that it was not actually a complaint but a request for information. The Council decided to send Miss B a copy of the letters from 10 July and 3 September and did so.
14. When Miss B received the letters, she emailed the Council saying she did provide a rent receipt signed by her landlord and would like to know what was regarded as evidence in writing. Miss B sent the Council a copy of the receipt again.
15. The Council then told Miss B that it had not received answers to questions that it sent to her in July.
16. On 11 October 2018, Miss B sent the Council a copy of an email dated 1 August 2018 with the information that it had requested.
17. On 11 December 2018, the Council accepted the information Miss B had provided was sufficient and progressed her claim. It paid and suspended her claim.
18. The Council asked Miss B to provide a range of financial records.
19. Miss B provided the financial records to the Council. The Council then assessed Miss B’s Housing Benefit claim.

Analysis

20. Miss B’s initial application contained an error about where she lived and who else lived there. This mistake was corrected in Miss B’s second application.
21. The Council told Miss B what information it needed to decide her claim, including answers to questions to Miss B and her landlord as well as proof of her rent payments.
22. Miss B and her landlord both provided answers to the questions the Council asked on 1 August 2018. The Council claimed not to have received Miss B’s information. Miss B resent her information on 11th Oct, but the Council did not act on it until 11th Dec.
23. Information provided by Miss B and her landlord about her claim states the amount of her rent, meaning the Council already had the substantive information about her rent.
24. Evidence shows Miss B sent a copy of her rent book to the Council in late September. The Council did not dispute that the rent receipt was sufficient. It is uncertain whether Miss B sent a copy of this to the Council before then. On the balance of probabilities, I consider that it is likely that Miss B sent a copy of her rent receipt at the same time as the other information.
25. I have not been able to determine whether the Council lost, or simply did not process, the information provided by Miss B. The end result was the same, in that the Council should have been able to process Miss B’s claim from August, but did not do so until December, four months later.
26. The time taken between 11 December 2018 and 14 February 2019 were due to Miss B providing financial information the Council needed to decide her claim.
27. The Council has now awarded Miss B Housing Benefit from her original application date of 23 April 2018.
28. The Council responded to Miss B’s complaint in September 2018 by sending her copies of the letters she asked for. Miss B knew this was the case because she acknowledged receipt of the letters shortly afterwards.

Was the Council at fault?

29. The Council was at fault because her Housing Benefit claim was unnecessarily delayed for four months when the Council did not take account of information provided by Miss B.

Did Miss B suffer any injustice?

30. Miss B’s claim was initially rejected because the Council did not take account of all the information Miss B had provided. When Miss B discovered this two months later and sent the information to the Council again, it took the Council another two months to tell her she had a valid claim and ask for more financial details. This caused Miss B avoidable uncertainty and distress.

Agreed action

31. To remedy the injustice caused by the fault I have identified the Council has agreed to take the following action within 4 weeks of my final decision:
• Pay Miss B £100 for the uncertainty and distress caused by the unnecessary delay to her Housing benefit claim.

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Final decision

32. I have found fault by the Council in the way it unnecessarily delayed processing Miss B’s Housing benefit claim. The Council has agreed to the recommendations made to remedy the injustice caused by this fault. I have now completed my investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman