Summary: Mrs X complained about the way the Council has dealt with her claims for housing benefit and council tax reduction. Mrs X believes the Council wrongly ended her benefit claim, used wrong calculations and did not consider evidence properly. The significant delays in dealing with Mrs X’s requests for reconsideration of her housing benefit and council tax claims amount to fault. This fault has caused Mrs X an injustice.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I shall refer to as Mrs X complained about the way the Council has dealt with her claims for housing benefit and council tax reduction. Mrs X believes the Council wrongly ended her benefit claim, used wrong calculations and did not consider evidence properly. She also complains of delay and changes of position. Mrs X says this has caused stress, financial problems and the Council has threatened to end her tenancy and take recovery action because of rent arrears.
2. Mrs X’s husband, Mr Y has made this complaint on her behalf.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. 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)
4. 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)
5. If someone disagrees with a housing benefit decision they can ask for a review or appeal to the tribunal. If they have a review, and are unhappy with the decision, they can then appeal to the tribunal. 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)
6. The Valuation Tribunal deals with appeals against decisions on council tax liability and council tax support or reduction.
7. 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

8. As part of the investigation, I have:
• considered the complaint and the documents provided by Mr X;
• made enquiries of the Council and considered the comments and documents the Council provided;
• discussed the issues with Mr X; and
• Mr X and the organisation had an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I considered any comments received before making a final decision.

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What I found

Key facts

9. In September 2020 the Council wrote to Mrs X advising that it had reviewed her housing benefit and council tax awards based on information it had received from the Department for work and Pension (DWP). This increased the amount Mrs X owed in council tax and reduced the amount she would receive in housing benefit.
10. Mr Y wrote to the Council questioning this and asked it to reconsider its decision. He confirmed there had been no increase in their income and the family were struggling financially. The Council reviewed the awards and in late October 2020 advised Mrs X that it had overpaid housing benefit by £1.63, which it would recover. It also confirmed the council tax balance had increased. The Council explained this was because two of their children was no longer entitled to child benefit.
11. Again Mr Y challenged this information and asked for a review of their housing benefit and council tax reduction entitlement. In November 2020, having received further information from HMRC the Council reviewed Mrs X’s awards and confirmed she had been underpaid £57 in housing benefit and £106.06 in council tax reduction.
12. On 18 March 2021 the Council wrote to Mrs X confirming it had reconsidered the September 2020 decision made on her entitlement. It confirmed it would revise the original decision in her favour and calculated her new entitlement using wages for October and November 2020.
13. Mr Y requested a further review of their housing benefit and council tax reduction awards. He asserted the Council’s calculations were wrong as they used incorrect figures for his earnings. He also complained about the way he had been treated by staff in the customer service team.
14. The Council reconsidered Mrs X’s housing benefit claim and wrote to her on 28 May 2021 upholding its original decision in September 2020. It confirmed Mrs X had been overpaid £499.57 in housing benefit and was not entitled to housing benefit from 29 March 2021.
15. The Council also wrote to Mrs X that day confirming it had reconsidered its decision of September 2020 in relation to her claim for council tax reduction. The Council confirmed it had decide to revise this decision and that Mrs X was entitled to council tax reduction from 28 December 2020 to 8 February 2020 and from 19 October 2020 to 2 November 2020.
16. On 16 June 2021 Mr Y wrote to the Council appealing both the housing benefit and the council tax reduction decisions. The Council acknowledged Mrs X’s appeal in relation to the housing benefit assessment and confirmed it would, if necessary, prepare a submission to the tribunal service. It also advised that if Mrs X was still unhappy with the council tax reduction decision she would need to appeal directly to the Valuation Tribunal Service.
17. Mrs X and Mr Y appealed to the Valuation Tribunal Service in relation to their council tax reduction claim and a hearing has been arranged for April 2022.
18. As the Council did not submit Mrs X’s housing benefit appeal to the tribunal service or review its decision, Mr Y asked the Ombudsman to investigate his complaint about the delays and errors in the Council’s service.
19. In response to my enquiries the Council states the delay in dealing with Mrs X’s initial review request in September 2020 was due to it being indexed incorrectly and then placed in the wrong tray. It suggests any further delay would be due to the volume of work officers were dealing with. It notes the request was resubmitted on 9 March 2021 and considered on 18 March 2021.
20. It states it received a further reconsideration request on 5 April 2021 which was initially put into the council tax reduction tray. The Council then moved it to the housing benefit tray on 23 April 2021. Mrs X resubmitted the request on 2 May 2021 and the Council considered it on 28 May 2021.
21. The Council states the delay in submitting the housing benefit appeal to the tribunal was due to the amount of work officers had; their seeking clarification on the issue; and staff being moved to other areas. It states there appears to have been a dispute regarding whether the decision was correct or not and this led to officers looking at how salary sacrifice is dealt with.
22. Several officers picked up the case and then returned it to the group tray between September 2021 and February 2022 when the Council revised its decision in Mrs X’s favour. The Council states that appeals have to be submitted to the tribunal service with the Council’s submissions and that the submissions take a considerable amount of time to complete. It states it had determined in December 2021/ January 2022 that the appeal would be lapsed but did not action this until February 2022.
23. On 11 February 2022 the Council revised its decision of 28 May 2021. It wrote to Mrs X stating it had underpaid £448.33 in housing benefit for the period 4 May 2020 to 29 March 2021 and £131.22 in council tax reduction. In a further letter of 24 February 2022 the Council confirmed it had underpaid £266.01 in housing benefit for the period 7 June 2021 to 4 October 2021. It has revised its decision on Mrs X’s appeal.
24. The Council states all benefit decision notification letters contain appeal rights and state council tax reduction appeals are heard by the Valuation Tribunal Service. However they do not actually state the appeal must be made direct to the Valuation Tribunal. The decision review letters do state appeals must be made to the Valuation Service, and this was included in the Council’s letter to Mrs X of 28 May 2021.
25. It acknowledges this was the only decision review letter sent to Mrs X in relation to council tax reduction as officers dealing with the reconsideration only sent housing benefit decision review letters. On receipt of Mrs X’s appeal in June 2021 the Council advised them they needed to appeal to the Valuation Tribunal Service.

Analysis

26. It is clear from the documentation that there have been significant delays in dealing with Mr Y’s requests to reconsider both the housing benefit and council tax reduction claims.
27. Although Mr Y requested a review of the decision of 16 September 2020 in October 2020, the Council did not reconsider it until 18 March 2021. We would generally expect councils to reconsider decisions within four weeks, so this is a significant delay. There was then a further, albeit shorter delay in reconsidering the decision in April and May 2021.
28. Mr Y then requested a review of the decisions made in May 2021 in June 2021. The Council promptly advised Mrs X she would need to appeal directly to the Valuation Tribunal service in relation to her council tax reduction claim. However there was again a significant delay in dealing with Mrs X’s appeal of the housing benefit decision. The Council did not refer Mrs X’s appeal to the tribunal service and only notified Mrs X it had revised the decision in her favour eight months later, in February 2022.
29. Delays of this nature are clearly unacceptable and amount to fault. These delays caused Mrs X unnecessary worry and stress and added to her financial difficulties. She and Mr Y have also been put to time and trouble in trying to resolve this matter.

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Agreed action

30. The Council has agreed to apologise to Mrs X and pay her £200 in recognition of the worry and stress the delays in reconsidering her housing benefit and council tax reduction claims have caused.
31. The Council should take this action within one month of the final decision on this complaint.

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Final decision

32. The significant delays in dealing with Mrs X’s requests for reconsideration of her housing benefit and council tax claims amounts to fault. This fault has caused Mrs X an injustice.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman