The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate this late complaint about a housing benefit overpayment. Miss X knew about the Council’s intention to recover the overpayment in 2018, and she could have complained sooner.
The complaint
Miss X complained about the Council’s decision to recover an overpayment of housing benefit which occurred in 2018. She said the Council has accepted making errors in not arranging for deductions to be put on hold and sending an email to the wrong address. She said it has not been transparent about the reasons for the overpayment until she raised a complaint in 2022. Miss X says she has received several threatening letters, causing her distress, and she has been caused financial strain. She wants the balance written off, and compensation for the distress.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
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 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 or may decide not to continue with an investigation if we decide: any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement, or further investigation would not lead to a different outcome.
(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6))
How I considered this complaint
I considered information provided by the complainant.
I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
In 2018, the Council decided it had overpaid Miss X’s housing benefit. It contacted her to make her aware of its intention to recover the overpayment.
Miss X, with support from her local Citizens Advice branch, contacted the Council, and the Council agreed to put a hold on recovery action for several months. However, it heard nothing further from Miss X and started recovery action again.
There were further periods of time where the Council placed recovery action on hold to enable Miss X to seek advice and support. It obtained an attachment of earnings order in mid-2021.
We usually expect people to bring complaints to us within 12 months of the date they became aware of the issue. Miss X knew about the overpayment in 2018. She says she did not know about the reasons for the overpayment until she complained in 2022. However, she had the opportunity to query how it arose at the time and, in any event, this would not have prevented her complaining when she found out about the overpayment. Miss X first complained to the Council in June 2022.
Miss X has also explained issues with the Council’s communications, as well as her own personal circumstances, affected her ability to complain sooner. I have considered whether these are good reasons to disapply the requirement for complaints to be made to us within 12 months. However, while these issues may understandably have caused some delay, they do not explain more than four years of delay. We will not now investigate Miss X’s complaint about the overpayment that arose in 2018.
In February 2022 the Council said it would put recovery action on hold again. However, this did not happen. This issue alone is not sufficient to warrant investigation, when the substantive complaint is now too late. This error did not cause Miss X an injustice, as the debt remained recoverable and the Council has since agreed to waive part of the overpayment. We could not achieve anything further of significance for Miss X.
Final decision
We will not investigate Miss X’s late complaint because it would have been reasonable for her to escalate her complaint to us within 12 months of becoming aware of the overpayment.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman