Summary: We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint about the Council’s handling of her housing benefit payments. This is because the complaint is late with no good reason to investigate now.

The complaint

1. Mrs X complains about the Council’s handling of her housing benefit payments. She says the Council miscalculated overpayments for 2017, 2018 and 2021. She is unhappy the Council will not investigate her complaint now because it is older than 12 months even though she only became aware of the matter in 2021 and recovery remains ongoing.

Back to top

The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
3. 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)
4. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’, which we call ‘fault’. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint, which we call ‘injustice’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We do not start or continue an investigation if we decide there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), section 34(B))
5. We will not usually investigate complaint handling if we are not investigating the rest of the complaint. This is because there is not usually enough injustice to justify us doing so. We collect information about particularly poor complaint handling practice and report this back to organisations. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), section 34B(8))

Back to top

How I considered this complaint

6. I considered information provided by Mrs X.
7. I also considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

Back to top

My assessment

8. Mrs X became aware of the overpayments in 2021. This makes her complaint late. If Mrs X disagreed with the overpayments, then it would have been reasonable for her to complain to us sooner. I have seen no good reason for the five-year delay in complaining to us. Therefore, I will not investigate this aspect of her complaint.

Recovery action

9. Councils are entitled to recover overpaid benefit payments from applicants. There is no legal requirement to suspend recovery because someone is informally challenging the overpayment. However, it is good practice to suspend recovery action when an appeal has been lodged with the independent benefits tribunal.
10. I have seen no evidence that Mrs X has lodged an appeal with the tribunal. Therefore, the Council is entitled to take recovery action in the circumstances and there is not enough evidence of fault on this point to justify us investigating. It remains open to Mrs X to negotiate a payment arrangement with the Council if recovery action is causing her financial hardship.

Complaint handling

11. As a publicly funded body we must be careful with how we use our resources. As we are not investigating the substantive matter about the overpayments and recovery action, it is not a good use of public resources to investigate the complaint handling in isolation.
12. In any event, the Council’s policy allows it to refuse complaints about matters the complainant became aware of more than 12 months ago. The Council was therefore entitled to refuse Mrs X’s complaint in the circumstances.

Back to top

Final decision

13. We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because it is late and there is not enough evidence of fault in the Council’s recovery action. It is also not a good use of public resources to investigate the complaint handling in isolation.

Back to top

Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman