The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint about additional charges incurred due to the Council failing to set up a direct debit. This is because there is insufficient evidence of fault to justify an investigation.
The complaint
Ms X complains about additional charges incurred due to the Council failing to set up a direct debit to pay her council tax. She said she tried numerous times to set it up, but it failed. She wants the Council to waive the enforcement fees and to allow her to pay her council tax in instalments.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
The Ombudsman investigates 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 an investigation if we decide there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6))
How I considered this complaint
I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
A Direct Debit is an instruction from an individual to their bank or building society. It authorises the organisation the individual wants to pay to collect varying amounts from the individual’s account.
The Council cannot set up a direct debit without instruction from Ms X. Therefore, Ms X was responsible for ensuring the direct debit was correctly set up and that payments were being made as required. Ms X agreed she could have been more diligent in checking her bank account to ensure the direct debit had been set up correctly and that payments were being made.
The Council appropriately sent Ms X a reminder notice in August 2021. The reminder notice clearly outlined the Council will start recovery action and issue a summons if no payment or contact was received within 7 days.
Ms X said she ignored this notice as the notice said to ignore if a direct debit had been set up. The Council provided a copy of the reminder notice sent. The notice does not state to ignore if a direct debit had been set up. Instead, it notes that if Ms X had made a payment, she could ignore the notice. Therefore, it would have been reasonable for Ms X to have checked her bank account to see if a payment had gone out to the Council before ignoring the reminder notice.
The Council appropriately issued a summons as it did not receive payment from Ms X. The Council also sent out an enforcement notice before enforcement agents visited Ms X’s property, and provided information regarding the enforcement fees Ms X would incur if she failed to pay.
Therefore, I will not investigate this complaint as we are unlikely to find fault with the Council’s actions. This is because Ms X was responsible for ensuring the direct debit was correctly set up and that her council tax payments were being made. The Council also appropriately notified Ms X of the outstanding payment due and what would happen if Ms X failed to pay. The Council is therefore entitled to take enforcement action to collect outstanding council tax.
Final decision
We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint because there is insufficient evidence of fault to justify an investigation.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman