London Borough of Enfield (22 016 229)
Category : Benefits and tax > Housing benefit and council tax benefit
Decision : Closed after initial enquiries
Decision date : 09 Mar 2023
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s decision to create an overpayment relating to housing benefit in 2020. This is because the complaint is late and there are no good reasons to investigate now.
The complaint
- Mrs X complains the Council failed to progress her appeal request. She says she sent it in 2020 to the Council complaining about its decision to create an overpayment of housing benefit.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
- The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
- 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)
- The law says we cannot normally investigate a complaint when someone can appeal to a tribunal about the same matter. 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)
How I considered this complaint
- I considered information provided by the complainant.
My assessment
- I will not investigate as the matters giving rise to the complaint have been brought late outside of our usual 12-month time period for submitting complaints. And there are no good reasons to investigate given I have seen no good reason Mrs X could not have complained to us earlier. Further, we would not usually investigate a matter that can be appealed to a tribunal.
Final decision
- We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because it has been made late and there are no good reasons for us to investigate now.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman