Leicester City Council (19 004 649)
Category : Benefits and tax > Housing benefit and council tax benefit
Decision : Closed after initial enquiries
Decision date : 08 Aug 2019
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: Mr X complains that the Council failed to backdate his housing benefit. The Ombudsman will not investigate this complaint because Mr X had a right of appeal to a tribunal against any decision to refuse backdating. The matter is also out of time.
The complaint
- Mr X complains that the Council failed to backdate his housing benefit.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
- 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)
- 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)
- 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)
How I considered this complaint
- I considered the complainant's and Council's comments. The complainant has commented on the draft decision.
What I found
- Mr X says that his housing benefit should have been backdated from November 2017. The Council wrote to him in June 2019 explaining that the time limit for requesting a review of appeal of the benefit decision had passed. The time limit for asking for a review is one month of the decision date (January 7th, 2018 in this case).
- Mr X had to request a review of the decision not to backdate the benefit within the legal time limits. He also had a right of appeal up to 13 months of that decision. This means that the complaint is out of jurisdiction. Further, I see no reason why the complaint could have been made to this office within 12 months for investigation.
Final decision
- The Ombudsman will not investigate this complaint because there was a right of appeal to a tribunal and the complaint is out of time.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman