Summary: Mr X complained the Council bullied and harassed him in relation to benefits claims, and wrongly applied for an anti-social behaviour injunction against him. We will not investigate this complaint. We cannot investigate decisions made by the courts, and it is unlikely we would find fault in the central issue about housing benefit and council tax support.

The complaint

1. Mr X complained the Council bullied and harassed him, and its workers are corrupt and have lied. The Council applied to court for an anti-social behaviour injunction against him. Mr X says the Council has not properly considered his numerous complaints. These issues arise from complaints about Mr X’s benefits entitlements. Most recently, Mr X complained about the Council’s decision to terminate his housing benefit and council tax support in 2019. Mr X says this led to him being threatened with eviction as he struggled to pay his rent. He says the issues have led to his mental health worsening.

Back to top

The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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)
3. We cannot investigate a complaint about the start of court action or what happened in court. (Local Government Act 1974, Schedule 5/5A, paragraph 1/3, as amended)
4. The Courts have said that we cannot investigate a complaint about any action by a council, concerning a matter which is itself out of our jurisdiction. (R (on the application of M) v Commissioner for Local Administration [2006] EHWCC 2847 (Admin))
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’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We may decide not to start or continue with an investigation if we believe:

• it is unlikely we would find fault, or
• the fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)

Back to top

How I considered this complaint

6. I considered the information Mr X provided when he complained to us.
7. I considered information the Council provided, which included complaints correspondence and court documents.
8. I considered Mr X’s comments on my draft decision.

Back to top

What I found

9. Mr X says he has experienced issues with the Council for 16 years. We expect people to complain to us within 12 months of the events they complain about.
   Mr X has provided no good reason why he did not bring some aspects of his complaint sooner. The Council signposted Mr X to the Ombudsman in mid-2018, but he complained to us in December 2019. We will not consider events before December 2018. This means we will not consider several of the complaints that Mr X says the Council never responded to.
10. I have seen no substantive evidence to support Mr X’s claim the Council harassed him. Mr X’s substantive complaint is about the Council’s decision in July 2019 to terminate his housing benefit and council tax support claims. This followed it requesting information in May 2019 about his wife’s self-employed earnings, which Mr X says was harassment. However, the information the Council requested was to try and process his benefit claims. The Council was entitled to request this information and it was entitled to terminate the claims when Mr X did not provide it. It gave him sufficient warning it would do so.
11. Mr X later said he had provided the information and the Council destroyed it, however there is no substantive evidence to support this and the communications I have seen show Mr X had no intention of providing the evidence the Council requested due to his view the Council was at fault. If we investigated this complaint, it is unlikely we would find fault in the Council’s actions, and Mr X contributed to his injustice by not providing the evidence the Council asked for.
12. It is the court, not the Council, that granted the anti-social behaviour injunction against Mr X. It did so based on evidence the Council provided. The court was satisfied Mr X had behaved anti-socially towards the Council, and that an order was justified to ban Mr X from causing Council staff harassment, alarm or distress. We have no legal power to intervene in an order made by the court.

Back to top

Final decision

13. The Ombudsman cannot and will not investigate this complaint. This is because parts of it are out of our jurisdiction as they relate to court proceedings, parts of it are about events that occurred too long ago and there is no evidence we would find fault in the substantive part of the complaint, which is about council tax and housing benefit.

Back to top

Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman