What happens if the Ombudsman finds the council was at fault?
We can recommend that the council takes action to put the matter right. This depends on what the complaint is about, but often we will ask the council to: • determine the ongoing or backdated claim; • pay the benefit due; • refer your claim to the rent officer; • issue or re-issue a decision notice with the correct information and appeal rights; or • consider an appeal or send it on to the independent appeals service. We can recommend that the council pays compensation. The amount we ask for will depend on how you have been affected by what has gone wrong. • Where we find that there has been unreasonable delay, we usually recommend a payment to recognise the anxiety and inconvenience caused. If you have got into arrears because of the delay, and your landlord is trying to evict you or the council has taken you to court for a council tax debt, we may ask for compensation for the additional distress. • In deciding how much compensation to ask for we can also take account of what you have
