Summary: Ms X complains the Council has not dealt properly with her Housing Benefit and Council Tax charges. The Council is at fault because it has agreed it did not properly take account of Ms X’s circumstances. Ms X suffered avoidable distress and was prevented from bidding for permanent accommodation. The Council should apologise, pay Ms X £229.51 that it told her it would not recover, pay Ms X £500 for avoidable distress, pay Ms X £1,000, consider her housing situation and provide guidance to staff.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I shall refer to as Ms X, complains the Council has not dealt with her Housing Benefit and Council Tax properly, because it has not fully implemented the actions that it agreed in a meeting with her in June 2023, in regard to writing off outstanding amounts in both her rent and Council Tax accounts.
2. Ms X says she is not sure her charges have been correct, and that she has been prevented from bidding for housing as a result of historic arrears that she says were the fault of the Council.

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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. If we are satisfied with an organisation’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

5. I spoke to Ms X about her complaint and considered documents she provided. I made enquiries of the Council and considered its response and the supporting documents it provided.
6. Ms X and the Council 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

What happened?

7. This is a brief chronology of key events. It does not contain everything I reviewed during my investigation.
8. Ms X’s employment circumstances changed and she provided information to the Council about this.
9. Ms X complained to the Council in August 2021 that it had not properly taken account of the information she had provided and that she should not owe arrears the Council said she did.
10. In July 2022 the Council considered an appeal by Ms X about her Housing Benefit and determined that overpayments should be recoverable. Ms X requested this be forwarded to Tribunal as she remained unhappy.
11. The Council responded to Ms X’s complaint at stage one in March 2023, setting out her Housing Benefit entitlement.
12. The Council offered a meeting with Ms X which took place in June 2023.

Analysis

13. Ms X’s rent account was in credit June 2021
14. Arrears started to build up to a level over £850 which prevented her bidding for housing, from September 2021 to January 2023.
15. The Council applied a manual adjustment credit to reduce Ms X’s arrears to below £850 for one week. Then Ms X’s arrears built up again preventing bidding until June 2023.
16. I have seen Ms X’s rent account balances for the entire period showing that she was prevented from bidding for properties for approximately 20 months.
17. Following a meeting with Ms X in early June, the Council decided to make a discretionary housing payment of £1674.87. The discretionary housing payment reset Ms X’s rent account to zero effective from 1 May 2023. In doing so, the Council effectively accepted that all issues before this date were not Ms X’s fault and has upheld her original complaint.
18. The Council says a Council tax support overpayment of £805.32 for the period 08 June 2020 – 09 May 2021 was also made non-recoverable.
19. The Council did not take any action after Ms X asked it to send her Housing Benefit appeal to Tribunal. This is fault by the Council.
20. The Council took 19 months to respond to Ms X’s complaint. This is fault by the Council. Ms X could have had her Housing Benefit and Council Tax matters resolved a year earlier and has suffered avoidable distress
21. I do not consider the Council’s proposed actions to be a complete remedy. It has agreed that a total of £2,546.97 has been credited to Ms X’s rent account. However, it has also written to her to tell her that £2776.48 had been deemed non-recoverable due to its mistakes. The Council has in effect recovered £229.51 from Ms X after it told her it wouldn’t.

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Agreed action

22. To remedy the outstanding injustice caused by the fault I have identified, the Council has agreed to take the following action within 4 weeks of this decision:
• Apologise to Ms X for the fault I have found;
• Pay Ms X £229.51 arising between the difference of the amounts it told her it would not recover, and the amounts it has actually credited to her rent account;
• Pay Ms X £500 in respect of the avoidable distress caused by the significant delay in dealing with her complaint issues;
• Pay Ms X £1,000, comprising £50 per month for each of the 20 months she lost the opportunity to bid for housing;
• Review Ms X’s housing status and decide whether it is appropriate to make an offer of housing to her, given the extended delay where she was prevented from bidding for housing due to the Council’s fault.
• Provide training and guidance to staff to ensure that requests for benefit appeals to be passed to Tribunal are actioned.
• Provide training and guidance to staff to ensure that complaints are responded to within the appropriate timescales in its complaint’s policy.
23. The Council should provide us with evidence it has complied with the above actions.

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Final decision

24. I have found fault by the Council, which caused injustice to Ms X. I have now completed my investigation.

Investigator’s decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman