The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the handling of a rent account for supported accommodation. There is no good reason to investigate old events when the law says we should not, and we could not say the claimed injustice stems from the alleged faults or achieve more for the complainant than the position in the Council’s response from 15 months ago.
The complaint
Mrs B, as court appointed deputy for Mr C, says the Council has not met her request for regular rent statements since 2017. She says this has resulted in arrears of nearly £28,000 in April 2023, and caused her significant distress, frustration, time and trouble to pursue the matter which is still not resolved.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
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, section 26B, as amended) The law says we cannot normally investigate a complaint when someone has a right of appeal, reference or review to a tribunal about the same matter. However, we may decide to investigate if we consider it would be unreasonable to expect the person to use this right. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(6)(a), as amended) The Social Entitlement Chamber (also known as the Social Security Appeal Tribunal) is a tribunal that considers housing benefit appeals. (The Social Entitlement Chamber of the First Tier Tribunal) We cannot investigate complaints about the provision or management of social housing by a council acting as a registered social housing provider. (Local Government Act 1974, paragraph 5A schedule 5, as amended) 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, or any fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained, or any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement, or we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation, or further investigation would not lead to a different outcome, or we cannot achieve the outcome someone wants.
(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))
How I considered this complaint
I considered information provided by the complainant and correspondence with her from the Council.
I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
Mr C lives in accommodation provided by the Council where he can receive care and support to meet the needs of his disabilities. The cost is split into rent charges and charges for care and support. Mr C has been entitled to Housing Benefit (HB) for his rent in the past, but there were periods when he was not receiving it. If Mrs B disagreed with any decision to stop paying HB it was reasonable for her to have sought a review and appealed to the Tribunal in line with paragraph 5 above.
In a complaint response in January 2023 the Council: acknowledged and apologised it had not sent regular rent statements; said it was considering how it could change its systems to issue regular statements in future; confirmed the current position and any outstanding debt for historic rent arrears was set out in a detailed statement it provided a copy of; so said there was no obstacle to Mrs B making arrangements with it to pay the outstanding rent debt, either in full or over a period to be agreed.
Mrs B has known of her frustration about not getting regular rent statements since at least 2017 by her own account, and she was able to complain to the Council at the time. There is no good reason she could not have complained to the Ombudsman before now, in line with paragraph 3 above. There is no reason for us to consider now a complaint about more than the most recent events.
The rent statement between 2019 and 2023 shows any rent arrears arose when Mr C was not receiving HB. Mr C remained liable for rent charges. The Council says it stopped paying HB when it became aware of a change of Mr C’s circumstances. It was for Mrs B to make a fresh HB application as deputy for Mr C but she does not seem to have done so. That, rather than any absence of the Council sending regular rent statements, is the cause of rent arrears.
So even if we were to investigate, it is unlikely we could achieve any more than the position in the Council’s response in January 2023.
Final decision
We will not investigate Mrs B’s complaint because there is not enough evidence the Council’s more recent actions have caused Mrs B or Mr C the injustice Mrs B claims, the Council has already apologised for the effect of any earlier fault and there is no good reason for us to investigate what happened before 2023.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman