Summary: Mr B complains about how the Council dealt with his claim for Housing Benefit when he was a full-time student, and his correspondence and appeal since then. The Ombudsman finds there was minor fault by the Council in that it asked him to provide information he had already provided. This caused frustration and inconvenience for which an apology is recommended.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I shall call Mr B, complains the Council failed to deal correctly with his claim for Housing Benefit (HB) when he was a full-time student between February 2017 and July 2018, and his correspondence and appeal since then.

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What I have investigated

2. I have looked at how the Council dealt with the administration of Mr B’s HB claim, and the correspondence associated with it.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

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. The Social Entitlement Chamber (also known as the Social Security Appeal Tribunal) is a tribunal that considers housing benefit appeals. (The Social Entitlement Chamber of the First Tier Tribunal)
5. 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

6. I considered all the information provided by Mr B about his complaint. I made written enquiries of the Council and took account of the evidence it provided in response. I provided Mr B and the Council with a draft of this decision and considered all comments received in response.

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What I found

7. When someone receives a decision about a housing benefit claim, they may ask the council to reconsider it. This may apply for example if the benefit claimant considers the claim has not been correctly assessed, or if the application for benefit is turned down, or if the council says the claimant has been paid too much benefit and is required to repay it. The council must then review the decision.
8. Instead of asking for a reconsideration, or if the council doesn’t change its decision after reconsideration, a person may ask for an appeal to be forwarded the Tribunal. Where the claimant makes such a request, the council can treat this as a request for a reconsideration. It must then send a decision notice saying whether it has altered its decision and setting out the claimant’s rights of appeal. The claimant can make a fresh appeal if they think the council’s decision is still wrong.

Mr B’s claim for HB

9. Mr B claimed HB for help with his rent. On 21 March 2017, the Council received information from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) which indicated Mr B was receiving Working Tax Credits (WTC). As the Council did not hold information about earnings, it wrote to Mr B asking about this. On 10 April the Council received Mr B’s response, in which he confirmed his wife had part time work for the period 13 February to 13 April 2017. But he did not provide evidence of her earnings and so the Council had to ask for this again: it did so on 21 April.
10. On 5 May Mr B provided some bank statements and information about a multi-level marketing (MLM) scheme he and his wife were engaged in. The Council then wrote to Mr B on 19 May asking for his wife’s payslips which had not yet been provided and enclosing a form about self-employment it needed him to complete about the MLM work. The Council received Mr B’s response on 20 June.
11. Acting on this information the Council calculated Mr B was entitled to £2285.95 in HB for the period 13 March to 31 July 2017. But the Council also needed confirmation from Mr B of whether any application had been made for Jobseeker’s Allowance or other benefits, or the reason why such a claim had not been made. So, it wrote to him on 3 July asking for this and for any proof of student income if his wife returned to university, as Mr B had suggested this was her plan. The letter requested a response within seven days and advised that if no response was received within a month, the claim would be refused.
12. By 12 September the Council had received no reply and so Mr B’s claim was suspended, and the Council wrote again to Mr B seeking a response. The Council received Mr B’s reply on 25 September. He said no claim for JSA etc had been made as he and his wife were both now full-time students. He said his wife had applied for student finance.
13. On 5 October Mr B’s wife asked the Council for an update on their claim. The Council advised the information provided on 25 September had not yet been looked at, but Mr B would need to provide details of student finance and current bank statements. Mr B’s wife subsequently provided a letter on 27 October giving information about income including a monthly £800 bursary paid to Mr B from 28 February from a course he was on before his teaching course, a £2,500 monthly bursary from 1 October 2017, and a student finance award. The details of the latter were verified by a letter from Student Finance England.
14. As the Council had not received details of any student finance award to Mr B’s wife, which had been requested on 5 October, it cancelled the HB claim from 6 November and the following day wrote to tell Mr B this. It advised him of his right to seek a reconsideration or appeal.
15. On 29 November the Council received a reconsideration request from Mr B. He said his wife’s student finance application was still being processed at the time of submission, but she had now withdrawn from her course in any event. The Council replied the same day asking for more information within seven days to inform the review. It asked for evidence of the start date of the course and the date she withdrew from it; evidence she withdrew her application for student finance; whether she received any payment from student finance; and if she had to pay back any payments already received. On 11 December the Council issued a reminder for this information. It received Mr B’s response on 15 December and based on the detail provided the Council decided to reinstate the HB claim.
16. At the beginning of January 2018, the Council noticed the £800 and £2,500 monthly bursary payments when reviewing information held by the DWP. The Council had been put on notice about these payments at the end of October when Mrs B mentioned them in a letter, but it had not asked for verification of them then. On 5 January the Council wrote to Mr B to ask for evidence of these awards, as well as a breakdown of his student finance award. It received Mr B’s response on 23 January and decided the student loan and bursary sums should be included as income on the HB claim. This recalculation resulted in nil entitlement to HB with effect from 11 September 2017 and an overpayment for a past period. The Council wrote to Mr B to tell him this on 30 January 2018.
17. In early March 2018, the Council received from Mr B a late request for reconsideration of the decision made on his claim. He said his request was late as he had only received the relevant decision letter two weeks before. He said he had been a student since September 2017 and had received no income except child benefit. The Council wrote on 10 April to ask him to confirm the dates for which his only income had been child benefit. 14 days was given for response, and a reminder was issued on 25 April. No reply had been received by 10 May and so the Council wrote to advise Mr B that due to delay his appeal had lapsed, but he could now appeal against that decision within a month, if he wished.
18. In June 2018 the Council wrote to Mr B about the HB overpayment debt. It subsequently issued a reminder and final demand for repayment, then on 13 August wrote advising Mr B that if the relevant sum was not repaid in full by 28 August the debt would be passed to a debt collection agency.
19. Mr B sought support from Citizen’s Advice and after asking the Council for more information about the overpayment he wrote in saying he considered the bursary income which had led to the overpayment should not have been taken into account in calculating his HB entitlement. He considered that while he was a full-time student on a teacher training course he should be entitled to HB. The Council received this letter on 28 September, and on 15 October it wrote back to Mr B. It said it had given its decision on 30 January 2018, allowing a month for appeal or review request, but Mr B had not made his request until 28 September 2018. The Council said Mr B could make a late appeal (the absolute time limit being 13 months from the date of decision) but he would need to give full reasons for delay and would need to submit a breakdown of the elements of his student finance for 2017/18 and a breakdown of the elements making up the bursaries. The Council gave one month for response, but none was received.
20. In February 2019 the Ombudsman contacted the Council about Mr B’s complaint. The Council then reviewed the information it held and decided there may have been errors in its calculations. It therefore decided it could conduct a review, but to do so it still needed more information about the student finance and bursary so it could look again at the overpayment and any claim entitlement. It therefore wrote to Mr B on 13 February 2019 asking for this information within ten days. No response was received.

Analysis

21. The Council’s response to the Ombudsman’s enquiry in February suggested there may have been fault in how calculations of Mr B’s HB entitlement were made. However, decisions about benefit entitlement including recoverable overpayments carry the right of appeal to the Tribunal. If Mr B wished to challenge such decisions it would have been reasonable for him to exercise his right of appeal. So, I have not looked at how the calculations were made or whether the decisions made were right or wrong.
22. I have looked at whether the Council’s handling of Mr B’s claim and associated correspondence was affected by administrative fault. I have noted that Mr B reported that he did not receive some of the Council’s letters, but I have no reason to doubt that they were sent. While overall the evidence shows the Council sought the proof it needed and did so within reasonable timescales, there were occasions when it requested information it already held. On 27 October 2017 the Council had received details of Mr B’s student finance but it requested this again on 5 January and he provided it on 23 January. The Council requested it again on 15 October 2018, but at the same time it also asked for other information about the bursaries it had not already received and which it needed to inform a review, and it received no reply.

Injustice to Mr B

23. The duplicate requests for information caused some frustration to Mr B, and inconvenience in having to provide the information more than once.
24. I have noted in paragraph 16 above that the Council failed to request information about the bursary payments at the earliest opportunity in October, but this did not cause Mr B significant injustice.

Agreed action

25. To acknowledge the frustration and inconvenience described above, I recommended that within four weeks of the date of the decision on the complaint the Council issue Mr B with a formal written apology. The Council agreed to my recommendation.

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Final decision

26. I have completed my investigation on the basis set out above.

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Parts of the complaint that I did not investigate

27. For the reasons set out in paragraph 3 I did not investigate any matters for which Mr B had the right of appeal to the tribunal. It would have been reasonable for him to have exercised that right if he wished to challenge the Council’s decisions on his claim.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman