Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s decision to pass Miss X’s council tax debt to an enforcement agency. This is because an investigation would be unlikely to find fault with the Council’s actions.

The complaint

1. Miss X complains the Council failed to respond to her complaint and passed her council tax debt to an enforcement agency without giving her the opportunity to pay.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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:

• any fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained.

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided by Miss X and the Council.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. Ms X says she first contacted the Council regarding the debt on her council tax account in February 2023. She made a formal complaint in October 2023 and a further complaint in November 2023 when she did not receive a response.
6. She said the Council failed to clarify the full outstanding debt on the account and did not contact her before passing the debt to an enforcement agency.
7. The Council acknowledged that it failed to respond to her October complaint but said it responded to the complaint she made in November 2023. The Council said it had been making her aware of the outstanding and increasing debt on her council tax account since February 2023 and it passed the account to an enforcement agency when it did not receive a response to repeated requests for information regarding her income. The Council agreed to cancel the enforcement fee added to the account but maintained that the other collections related fees had been charged correctly. Miss X referred the complaint to the Ombudsman as she remained unhappy with the Council’s response.
8. The evidence shows the Council has sent Miss X requests for her income and made attempts to arrange a payment plan but Miss X has not responded. The Council made several requests for more information to show that Miss X is suffering financial hardship and issued Miss X with a warning to let her know the account would be passed to collections before doing so. An investigation into this matter would therefore be unlikely to find fault with the Council’s management of Miss X’s account.

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Final decision

9. We will not investigate Miss X’s complaint because an investigation would be unlikely to find fault with the Council’s actions.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman