The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint that the Council has not credited all the complainant’s council tax payments to his account. This is because there is insufficient evidence of fault by the Council.
The complaint
The complainant, Mr X, says the Council has not credited all the council tax payments he made at the post office to his council tax account. He says he saw the missing payments in the Council’s suspense account but the Council will not accept he has overpaid. He wants a reimbursement from the Council.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
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 an investigation if we decide there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))
How I considered this complaint
I considered information provided by Mr X and the Council. This includes the complaint correspondence, the post office receipts, and a screenshot of Mr X’s council tax account. I also considered our Assessment Code.
My assessment
Mr X says the Council has not credited all the council tax payments he made at the post office for 2023/24. He has highlighted payments he made in April, May, June, July and August 2023. He has provided the post office receipts which he says shows payments, on some dates, for both card and cash payments; he says not all have been credited to his account. Mr X says he saw the Council’s suspense account which contained the missing payments.
The Council checked the suspense account but did not find the payments. It considered the receipts and said it had credited all the payments to Mr X’s account. It suggested the receipts did not show duplicate payments but reflect how the post office records transactions. The Council said Mr X had a zero council tax balance for that tax year. The Council suggested he raise his concerns with the post office and said it would reconsider the case if Mr X obtained evidence from the post office that he paid both cash and card payments on the disputed dates.
In response to my enquiries the Council checked the suspense account again but, as before, did not find any missing payments.
I will not investigate this complaint because there is insufficient evidence of fault by the Council. I have considered the receipts and Mr X’s council tax account for 2023/24. All the payments have been added to the account; by the end of the financial year the account had a zero balance. If Mr X had overpaid then I would expect to see a credit. But there is no credit which means there is nothing for the Council to refund. We could not ask the Council to pay money to Mr X when there is no evidence the Council received excess payments.
The Council checked its suspense account twice and the alleged missing payments are not there. I have no reason to doubt Mr X’s report that he saw the payments in the suspense account but, as the Council has checked, there is nothing more we could ask it to do. We make evidence-based decisions and could not ask the Council to make a payment to Mr X when there is no evidence of any excess payments in the suspense account.
I examined the receipts and agree that some may show card and cash payments on the same day; I do not know why. But there is no evidence the Council received two payments. I share the Council’s view that Mr X needs to raise his concerns with the post office and return to the Council if the post office confirms it sent more payments to the Council than the Council says it received.
The Council has already done what we would expect it to do and, even if we started an investigation, there is nothing more we could check. We cannot investigate the post office, because it is not part of the Council, and we do not have the power or skills to trace financial payments. But, I can say there is insufficient evidence of fault by the Council because there is no evidence it received excess payments and it responded appropriately by explaining its position to Mr X.
Final decision
We will not investigate this complaint because there is insufficient evidence of fault by the Council.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman