Summary: Miss C complains about the contact arrangements for the Council’s housing benefit team and the move to online contact. The Ombudsman has found fault with one part of the Council’s administration of Miss C’s claim. But this did not lead to a significant injustice.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I shall describe as Miss C, complains the Council has made access to its housing benefit department only available online. This has led to times when she could not contact the department:

• In March 2018, to query an overpayment letter she received. The Council then started recovery action before the 10 days it had given her to contact it. This led to a breach of confidentiality with her employer.
• In September 2018, she received a letter advising her of a housing benefit award she knew was wrong. She tried to make an online query soon after, but the system was down.

2. Miss C complains the Council’s switchboard will not pass on a message and there is no facility for face to face meetings.
3. Miss C also complains about a delay in responding to her complaints.

Back to top

What I have investigated

4. I investigated the circumstances of Miss C’s complaint. I also asked the Council more generally about its move to an online service and what alternatives it has in place.

Back to top

The Ombudsman’s role and powers

5. 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)
6. We cannot question whether a council’s decision is right or wrong simply because the complainant disagrees with it. We must consider whether there was fault in the way the decision was reached. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended)
7. 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)
8. 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)
9. We may investigate matters coming to our attention during an investigation, if we consider that a member of the public who has not complained may have suffered an injustice as a result. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26D and 34E, as amended)

Back to top

How I considered this complaint

10. As part of the investigation, I have:
• considered the complaint and the documents provided by Miss C;
• made enquiries of the Council and considered its response;
• spoken to Miss C;
• sent my draft decision to Miss C and the Council and considered the responses I received.

Back to top

What I found

Legal and administrative background

Housing benefit

11. Housing benefit is a means-tested benefit payable to people on a low income to help them pay their rent. The Housing Benefit Regulations say councils can ask claimants to provide any document or information that it reasonably needs to work out the claimant’s entitlement to benefit. (Housing Benefit Regulations, regulation 86(1))
12. The Housing Benefit Regulations say every claim needs to be in writing (Housing Benefit Regulations 2006, Reg 83(1)), unless a Council has decided to allow telephone claims. (Regulation 84(4A))

Equalities Act

13. The Equality Act 2010 says an individual or organisation that provides a service to the public, such as councils, must not treat someone worse just because of one or more “protected characteristics”. Protected characteristics include people with disabilities.
14. When the duty arises, the public body is under a positive and proactive duty to look at removing or preventing obstacles to a disabled person accessing its services. If the adjustments are reasonable it must make them.

The Council’s complaints procedure

15. The Council has a three-stage complaint procedure. The first stage is review by a service manager, the second by a head of the service and the third stage by an independent adjudicator. The response times for each stage are 10, 20 and 30 working days.

What happened

16. Miss C was receiving housing benefit. In March 2018 the Council wrote to her about an overpayment. It asked her to contact it before 10 April.
17. On 6 April the Council wrote to Miss C advising it had decided to apply to her employer for an attachment of earnings to recover the overpayment.
18. Miss C emailed a council officer she had a contact for on 9 April. She advised she had tried to contact Overpayments using several telephone numbers. Customer Services advised all lines were down. Miss C asked for contact about the attachment of earnings. The officer emailed back to advise she had contacted Miss C’s employer to retract the request.
19. Miss C complained to the Information Commissioner about an alleged data breach. The Commissioner’s view was the Council had a legitimate reason for contacting Miss C’s employer. So there was no data breach.
20. Miss C says, in September 2018, she received a letter from housing benefit advising her of a change to how much it would pay. She says she knew the amount was too much. So she tried to contact the Council online to stop the payment. But the system was down. She emailed an officer in housing benefit’s overpayments team, as housing benefit did not publish a telephone number.
21. In November, Miss C appealed a decision. In December 2018 she reported another change in her circumstances. She also complained about the problems she had contacting housing benefit, because it had moved to an online only contact. The Head of Service of the housing benefit team responded two weeks later explaining why it had made the changes. He also acknowledged the Council had missed dealing with the appeal. It had now rectified this.
22. Miss C asked to escalate the complaint on 29 January 2019. The 26 February response, from the Council’s independent adjudicator, did not uphold Miss C’s complaint. So she complained to the Ombudsman.

Miss C’s complaint

23. In response to my enquiries, the Council:

• provided examples of times Miss C had successfully used the online portal.
• Advised it has suggested Miss C could use the post to send documents, which it was dealing with within four days of receipt.
• It had been able to reduce Miss C’s overpayment after she appealed. It had agreed to write off the small balance left.

The contact arrangements for housing benefit claims

24. In response to my enquires, about the wider issue of access arrangement for claimants, the Council advised:
• “[t]he online portal is new and emerging technology and, as with any new system implementation, there were implementation issues although these were in July 2017.”
• Recently problems had been relatively modest.
• It had kept a postal service, as a contingency for people unable to contact it online.
• It had a contract with an advice agency for it to provide digital support for claimants.
• it had "data-hubs” and “digital zones” throughout the Borough which provided digital support and free online access for claimants. It provided me with copies of leaflets advertising these services.
• Each page of the online claim form had a help button that offered real-time support.
• It had a telephone call-back option for those with Equality Act protected characteristics.
• It had different arrangements for its most vulnerable claimants living in supported or exempt accommodation.

Analysis

25. The Council did ask Miss C’s employer for an attachment of earnings before the 14 days it had given her to contact it. That was fault. But the Council quickly remedied it, after Miss C contacted it. I do not see this caused a continuing significant injustice and the Information Commissioner has considered her complaint about the alleged data protection breach.
26. Miss C is concerned about the problems she has had contacting the Council’s housing benefit department. But in the examples she has given, the Council responded and Miss C could address her concerns – by withdrawing the attachment of earnings request and processing her appeal request. My view is any unremedied injustice is not significant enough to warrant the public expense of further investigation by the Ombudsman.
27. Miss C also complains generally about the Council housing benefit team’s move to online claims and contact. This Council has chosen to withdraw telephone contact details for its housing benefit team. But the law gives councils discretion whether to provide telephone contact for housing benefit issues. Face to face contact is also not a compulsory requirement of the housing benefit scheme. And it is not our role to question the merits of the Council’s policy decisions to not provide these options.
28. I did ask the Council what measures it had in place to help claimants who could not easily use online services. The Council has provided details of its contingency arrangements and the support it offers. These arrangements show the Council has considered how it can meet its Equality Act duties. So I cannot uphold that part of the complaint.
29. From the information I have, it seems the Council responded to Miss C’s complaint at stage two and three of its procedure. I am unsure if it provided a stage one response. But my view is I do not need to investigate this further. I will not look at the complaint response in isolation from the other issues. This is because the Ombudsman does not consider there can, usually, be enough injustice from any failings in the complaints process, alone, to warrant the public expense of further investigation.

Back to top

Final decision

30. I uphold the complaint, because of evidence of fault, when the Council tried to arrange an attachment of earnings before the end of the contact period it had allowed. But this did not cause Miss C an ongoing injustice. So I have completed my investigation.

Back to top

Parts of the complaint that I did not investigate

31. I have not investigated any of the housing benefit decisions themselves. This is because Miss C had the option to appeal to the Social Entitlement Chamber (also known as the Social Security Appeal Tribunal). This is a tribunal that considers housing benefit appeals. (The Social Entitlement Chamber of the First Tier Tribunal)

Back to top

Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman