London Borough of Southwark (19 008 239)

Category : Benefits and tax > Housing benefit and council tax benefit

Decision : Upheld

Decision date : 06 Dec 2019

The Ombudsman's final decision:

Summary: Mr X complained about the way the Council handled his housing benefit. The Council was at fault for poor communication about the housing benefit issues and a delay in reviewing one of the decisions. It will apologise and pay Mr X £150 for the time and trouble and inconvenience caused. The Council was not at fault for making multiple decisions for overlapping periods of time.

The complaint

  1. Mr X complained the Council decided he had been paid too much housing benefit. It recovered some of the overpayments whilst he was waiting for a review of the decision in question. He says the Council did not credit him with the full amount recovered after overturning the original decision.
  2. Mr X said the Council had made several decisions for overlapping periods in a short period of time, which made the situation very confusing. It delayed in resolving his queries and responding to his complaint. This caused him time and trouble and inconvenience.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

  1. 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)
  2. 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)
  3. 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

  1. I considered the information Mr X and the Council provided. I considered relevant law and guidance, as set out below, and our guidance on remedies.
  2. Mr X and the Council had an opportunity to comment on my draft decision and I considered their comments before making a final decision.

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What I found

Background

  1. A person whose income is low enough may claim housing benefit to help pay their rent. If their circumstances change, the council may need to recalculate the benefit. This may be because their income or benefits have changed, or because of changes within the household.
  2. Councils must make decisions about housing benefit in writing. The person can ask for a review of the decision if they think it is wrong. If they are unhappy with the outcome of the review they can appeal.
  3. Where a council decides the person has been paid too much it can recover the amount of the overpayment. It is good practice to suspend recovery whilst a review is being considered but there is no legal requirement to do so. If the decision is reversed after the review or appeal the Council would need to credit the recovered amount to the person’s rent account.

What happened

  1. Mr X receives housing benefit. The Council made three housing benefit decisions, one on 5 February and two on 11 February 2019. It did so because of changes in Mr X’s income, changes in benefits and a change within the household. The decisions affected the housing benefit due in different ways and related to different, but overlapping, periods. The Council decided Mr X was overpaid and started recovering the overpayment at the rate of £21 per week. Mr X asked the Council to review the decisions.
  2. The Council said the decision on 5 February was overturned by a decision on 11 February. This meant the decision could not be reviewed because it was replaced by a fresh decision. The new decision reduced the amount of the overpayment.
  3. In early March, Mr X asked the Council to review a decision dated 11 February. The Council did not complete this review until late July 2019. The Council decided the overpayment should be written off. The Council had already recovered the overpayment from Mr X so it said it would credit £217.43 to his rent account. By this point Mr X had moved house, which meant the original rent account was closed and a new rent account opened. The Council applied the credit to the old rent account which Mr X did not have access to. The Council explained its IT system automatically allocated the credit to the original account. The Council has provided evidence that it later credited this amount to the new rent account.
  4. The Council made a further decision on 12 March 2019. This said it had overpaid Mr X by £703.11. Mr X asked it to review this decision. The Council upheld the decision on review. After an appeal, it decided to write off this amount. The Council had not recovered money relating to this overpayment so it did not need to apply a further credit.
  5. Mr X said the Council did not keep him informed about the action it was taking to carry out reviews and delayed in resolving his queries. He also said the Council delayed responding to his complaints and its responses were confusing.
  6. The Council’s complaint response sets out in detail the various contacts between Mr X and the Council. This shows Mr X did call the Council numerous times asking for updates. It also shows on one occasion he asked a manager to call him but because the correct internal process was not followed this did not happen. The Council also accepted a delay in carrying out a review of one of the decisions between early March and late July 2019. It said this may have been overlooked because of confusion caused due to the different overpayment periods.

My findings

  1. It is not my role to check whether the Council paid the correct amount of housing benefit to Mr X. The appropriate method for challenging the amount of benefit is to request a review or appeal, as Mr X has done.
  2. The Council was not at fault for issuing multiple decisions in a short time. It needed to recalculate the housing benefit due in response to various changes in relevant information.
  3. The Council was not at fault for issuing decisions for overlapping periods. This was due to changes that affected the benefit calculation for different periods that happened to overlap.
  4. The multiple decisions did make the situation confusing but that was not because of fault by the Council. The complaint responses were confusing but this was because the housing benefit situation was complicated. There is no evidence of fault with the complaints process.
  5. It is good practice to suspend recovery of overpayments whilst a review is considered. However, there is no legal rule requiring councils to do so. Therefore, I cannot say the Council was at fault for recovering the £217.43 overpaid. I note that it put a hold on the £703.11 decision and did not recover this sum, which was later written off.
  6. There was a delay in resolving the situation and, in particular, in carrying out the review of one of the decisions. The Council should have reviewed this decision in March or April but did not do so until late July. This was fault.
  7. The Council also failed to keep Mr X adequately informed of progress in resolving the various housing benefit issues and failed to respond to his requests for updates with meaningful information. On one occasion it agreed a manager would call Mr X but due to an internal failure they did not do so. This lack of proper communication was further fault.
  8. One decision was reversed on review, which meant the Council needed to apply a credit of £217.43. Because this related to the old rent account its system automatically applied the credit to that account. The Council later applied it to the new rent account. It did not delay unduly in doing so. It was not at fault.
  9. In its complaints response the Council offered Mr X £75 compensation for not explaining the overpayments adequately until its complaint response in May 2019. Mr X said this was not sufficient in light of the inconvenience the delay and poor communication caused. I agree that a higher sum would be appropriate given the inconvenience and time and trouble Mr X was put to.

Agreed action

  1. The Council will, within one month of the date of the final decision:
    • apologise to Mr X for the poor communication in relation to the housing benefit issues and its delay in reviewing one of the decisions; and
    • pay him £150 for the time and trouble caused to him.

For the avoidance of doubt it may offset the £75 already paid against this sum.

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Final decision

  1. I have completed my investigation. I have found fault leading to personal injustice. I have recommended action to remedy that injustice.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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