The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about an administrative error related to Mr X's council tax account. The Council has accepted fault, apologised and offered to defer the outstanding council tax owed over the next financial year. This is an appropriate remedy for the injustice caused. It is unlikely an investigation would add to this or lead to a different outcome.
The complaint
Mr X complains the Council made an administrative error in its handling of his council tax account. The Council has accepted its error, apologised to him, and offered to spread the outstanding council tax owed over the next financial year. Mr X says this is insufficient to remedy the injustice caused.
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 or continue an investigation if we decide: we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation, or further investigation would not lead to a different outcome.
(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))
How I considered this complaint
I considered information provided by the complainant.
I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
In its complaint response to Mr X, the Council accepted it had made an administrative error which meant Mr X had been unable to view his council tax bill in his online account during early 2024. It apologised to Mr X for the error. It offered to defer the outstanding amount due and spread it over the 2024/25 financial year. It also told Mr X what action it had taken to prevent the fault recurring.
We will not investigate this complaint. The Council has apologised to Mr X for the error and offered to spread the payment of the outstanding amount due. This is a proportionate remedy for any injustice caused. It is unlikely further investigation could add to this or that we would reach a different outcome.
Mr X also complains about poor complaints handling but we will also not investigate this. It is not a good use of our resources to investigate complaints about complaints handling when we are not investigating the substantive matter.
Final decision
We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because it is unlikely an investigation by us would add to the Council’s response or reach a different outcome.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman