Summary: Mr X complained about the Council’s delay in dealing with his housing benefit appeal against its decision of an alleged overpayment owed by Mr X. There was fault by the Council in how it dealt with Mr X’s housing benefit case. The Council was also at fault for its complaint handling and its poor communication with Mr X. This caused injustice to Mr X. The Council will take action to remedy the injustice caused.

The complaint

1. Mr X complained about the Council’s delay in dealing with his housing benefit appeal against the Council’s decision of an alleged overpayment owed by Mr X. He also complained about how the Council dealt with his complaint to it. As a result, Mr X said the Council’s failings caused him financial and emotional hardship.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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 significant injustice, or that could cause injustice to others in future we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)
3. 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

4. I have discussed the complaint with Mr X and considered the information he provided. I also considered the information the Council provided in response to my enquiries.
5. I sent Mr X and the Council a copy of my draft decision and considered all comments received before reaching a final decision.

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What I found

Legislation and Guidance

6. Housing benefit helps people on low incomes to pay their rent. It is a means tested benefit, taking both capital and income into account.
7. The Council must make a decision about housing benefits in writing. Claimants can ask the council for a reconsideration and/or appeal about its decision. If the Council receives an appeal request, it must pass the appeal to the Tribunal “as soon as practicable”. (Rule 24(1A) of the Tribunal Procedure (First-Tier Tribunal) (Social Entitlement Chamber) Rules 2008).
8. The Ombudsman’s principles of good administrative practice encourage councils to make timely decisions and proactively explain the reasons for any delays. As a benchmark we consider councils should aim to forward appeals within four weeks.

What happened

9. This chronology includes key events in this case and does not cover everything that happened.
10. Mr X claims Universal Credit (UC) which includes the housing benefit element.
11. In 2021, Mr X received an overpayment letter from the Council. The letter stated Mr X had been overpaid £745.40 in housing benefit.
12. Mr X disputed the Council’s overpayment decision and asked the Council to reconsider its decision.
13. In 2022, Mr X received the Council’s mandatory reconsideration decision letter. The Council maintained its initial decision that Mr X owed £745.40 overpayment. The Council referred Mr X’s debt to the benefit debt management team. The recovery organisation started to recover the overpayment by making deductions from Mr X’s UC account.
14. In April 2022, Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB) submitted an appeal letter to the Council against its overpayment decision on behalf of Mr X. CAB then chased the Council on two occasions for its reply to the appeal letter it submitted to it.
15. In October 2022, CAB made a formal complaint to the Council on behalf of Mr X. It complained about the Council’s poor communication and its failure to respond to the April 2022 appeal letter it submitted to the Council. CAB said Mr X was unsure whether the Council had submitted his appeal application to the Tribunal. CAB asked the Council to send it an update on Mr X’s appeal application.
16. A few days later the Council replied to CAB. It confirmed it had received Mr X’s appeal application which was with its appeal team and that it would contact CAB again with an update.
17. In May 2023, CAB made another formal complaint to the Council about how it had dealt with Mr X’s housing benefit appeal application. CAB reiterated Mr X disputed the Council’s housing benefit overpayment decision. CAB said it submitted Mr X’s appeal application in April 2022, chased the Council for its update and made a formal complaint in October 2022. It said the Council failed to respond and deal with Mr X’s case while the overpayment was being recovered from Mr X’s UC account. CAB said the Council’s delay over a period of one year caused financial difficulties and emotional distress to Mr X.
18. When Mr X received no response from the Council, he made a complaint to the Ombudsman. Mr X complained about the Council’s delay and failure to deal with his appeal application and his complaints to it.
19. In August 2023, the Council issued its response letter to Mr X’s complaint following the Ombudsman’s involvement. The Council apologised for its poor communication and its delays with dealing with Mr X’s case. It said the delay was partly due to a high number of complex appeals within its service and partly due to some system issues with the records it held for Mr X. The Council upheld Mr X’s complaint and agreed to write off the £745.40 overpayment. It said the system issues were ongoing and it was unable to complete the full write off. The Council said it would refund Mr X with £382.45 (the repayment deducted from his UC account).
20. In response to our enquiries, the Council confirmed its delays with dealing with Mr X’s case was due to some system issues it was experiencing. The Council confirmed it had refunded the £382.45 to Mr X’s rent account. And it said it is willing to offer Mr X £150 financial remedy in recognition of its delays with dealing with his case.
21. However, the Council said its system issues is ongoing and remains unresolved. For example, the Council said it has been unable to write off Mr X’s overpayment as agreed in its complaint response letter to Mr X due to the ongoing technical issues. But the Council has confirmed it will not ask Mr X to repay the overpayment in the future. The Council said although the system issues also affected other claimants, it confirmed those claimants have not been financially affected. It explained that this is because the claimants’ debt records are stuck on the Council’s system and the recovery organisation does not hold a record for recovery purposes. The Council said therefore the recovery organisation has not and will not attempt recovery action on those other identified claimants’ cases.
22. The Council also confirmed there is currently a backlog of appeal application cases of approximately six months. It said it is in the process of restructuring its services so as to clear the backlog.

Analysis

23. Mr X submitted his housing benefit appeal application to the Council in April 2022 and the Council dealt with Mr X’s case in August 2023. This was a significant delay. It took the Council approximately 16 months to deal with Mr X’s housing benefit appeal case. This was fault and it caused Mr X distress, uncertainty and frustration.
24. Similarly, there was fault by the Council in how it dealt with Mr X’s complaint. CAB submitted two formal complaints to the Council on behalf of Mr X, in October 2022 and May 2023. However, the Council did not issue its response to Mr X’s complaint until August 2023. Again, this was a significant delay, and it was not in line with the Council’s complaint procedure timescales. This was fault. Also, the Council was at fault for its poor communication with Mr X. There was no evidence to show the Council informed and/or provided Mr X with reasons for its delays. The Council’s failings caused Mr X distress, uncertainty, worry and frustration.
25. I note the Council apologised to Mr X, said it would write off his overpayment and has refunded the £382.45 to Mr X. And following our enquiries to the Council, it further proposed to offer Mr X £150 financial remedy in recognition of its delays with dealing with his case. These remedies are welcome, and the Council’s proposed financial remedy offer is proportionate and in line with our guidance on remedies. However, I find the ongoing technical / system issue is a concern. This is because debt records of other claimants remain stuck on the Council’s systems and although the Council confirmed the other claimants have not been affected financially, this issue remains unresolved. The Council must find a resolution to the ongoing issue in a timely manner. This has been addressed in the ‘agreed action’ section below.
26. As regards the Council’s current appeal application backlog of approximately six months, this is a significant delay in dealing with claimants’ appeal cases. Councils must pass claimants’ appeal applications to the Tribunal as soon as practicable in line with Rule 24(1A) of the Tribunal Procedure (First-Tier Tribunal) (Social Entitlement Chamber) Rules 2008. While I note the Council said it is in the process of restructuring its services to address the backlog issue, it needs to provide evidence of how it plans to reduce the backlog. This has been addressed in the ‘agreed action’ section below.

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Agreed action

27. To remedy the injustice caused by the faults identified, the Council has agreed within one month of the final decision to:

• apologise in writing to Mr X for the distress, uncertainty and frustration caused by the Council’s failings as identified above. The apology should be in accordance with our new guidance, Making an effective apology
• pay Mr X £150 to acknowledge the injustice caused to him by the faults identified above
• provide the Ombudsman with an action plan (with timescales) setting out how the Council will:
1. resolve its ongoing technical / system issues
2. reduce the current claimants’ appeal application backlog
3. continue to deal with claimants’ appeal applications in a timely manner.

28. The Council should provide us with evidence it has complied with the above actions.

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Final decision

29. I find evidence of fault by the Council leading to injustice. The Council has agreed to take action to remedy the injustice.

Investigator’s decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman