The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the way the Council dealt with his Council tax payment as there is no evidence of fault and the matter is out of time. The matter has also been remedied.
The complaint
Mr X says that the Council wrongly allocated a payment of Council tax which led to enforcement costs added to his account.
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) We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word ‘fault’ to refer to these. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We may decide not to start or continue with an investigation if we are satisfied with the actions an organisation has taken or proposes to take. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(7), 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: there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating, or any fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained, or any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement.
(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
Mr X made a payment of Council tax in March 2020 of £970 following a bill for £969 form the Council for the period 2020/1.
Mr X owed Council tax for previous years of £2312. The Council says that the payment did not specify the precise year the payment was to go towards and so it was automatically put the previous debt.
As no responses were received to the reminder latter regarding the most recent debt, a Liability Order was obtained in December 2020. Bailiffs were instructed to collect the debt. Mr X complained to the Council about this in March 2022.
I see no reason why a complaint could not have been made to this office within 12 3 months of the first notification that the payment had not gone to the most recent account (June 2020). The complaint is therefore out of time.
Further, as the payment did not specify which account it was to be paid, the Council’s decision to allocate it to an earlier debt was not fault. The Council has now reallocated the money and cancelled the summons and legal costs. This is a satisfactory remedy to the complaint.
Final decision
We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because the matter is out of time. there is no evidence of fault and the matter has been remedied.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman