You can contact me on: 0300 061 4470 Our Reference: C2023198

Sadie.Dalby@ombudsman.org.uk

In Confidence
Mr

Grimsby
Lincolnshire
DN32

18 August 2017

Dear Mr

Your complaint about HM Courts & Tribunals Service

Thank you for contacting us with your complaint about HM Courts & Tribunals Service
(HMCTS). Please note that I have tried to phone you to discuss your complaint in more detail
before completing our assessment. I phoned you on three separate occasions and emailed you
to try and arrange a convenient time to talk. I am sorry we were not able to speak to each
other. As you know we have been carrying out an assessment of your complaint which is
where we consider whether to investigate. When we assess a case, we look to see if there is
any evidence of failings by the organisation involved. If we see evidence of failings, we next
look at whether the organisation has taken appropriate action to put this right. If we consider
that the organisation has, we will usually not investigate. In your case, we have carefully
considered your complaint and found that HMCTS has already taken appropriate action to
remedy what went wrong in your case. Therefore, we will be taking no further action. I will
explain more about our decision below.

Your complaint

You complain about Grimsby Magistrates’ Court and it handling of your application for a case
to be stated in relation to an appeal of a Council Tax Liability Order. You complain that there
were delays in the case being progressed; you had to make an unnecessary claim for a judicial
review; some of your correspondence was unanswered and you believe some letters were not
posted to you. You say there is now a financial barrier to progressing the matter which did
not exist at the outset, as you say you would have qualified for a fee remission up until
7 October 2013 but fees have since increased from £235 to £528. You also say you have spent
a great deal of time pursuing this matter and your complaint, which has caused you stress and
inconvenience. You would like service improvements, a higher financial payment and your
appeal to be dealt with.
Our decision

In making our decision, we have considered the information you have provided to us and we
have made enquiries with HMCTS. I want to take this opportunity to say how sorry I was to
hear about what happened and how long it took you to resolve matters with HMCTS. I am also
sorry that you were unhappy with HMCTS's response to your complaint. It is clear there were
failings in HMCTS's handling of your case. We can see that HMCTS has accepted a number of
failings, apologised to you and offered a financial payment of £750. However, you believe it
needs to take further action to put things right for you. As such, your complaint to us is that
HMCTS has not taken appropriate action to remedy your complaint. You only appear to have
one outstanding issue that has not been acknowledged by HMCTS. This is whether or not the
letters you did not receive were posted to you. I am sorry but we consider that we cannot
come to a definitive view on this issue either way. We cannot say for certain whether or not
these letters were posted to you based on the evidence available.

Having considered what happened in your case, it is our view that the amount of financial
remedy offered by HMCTS is an appropriate amount to recognise the failings in this case. We
have come to this decision by considering other HMCTS complaints where we have
recommended a financial payment in the past. From this, we can see that the amount offered
by HMCTS already is above the amounts we have recommended in cases similar to yours.
Therefore, we see no evidence that further action is required here. You also told us that you
wanted HMCTS to make improvements to its service to ensure something like this does not
happen to someone else. We contacted HMCTS for more information about the actions it has
taken in response to your complaint. It told us that it has provided feedback to the court
about the issues identified and has asked it to provide comments on this and confirm the
actions they have taken as a result of your complaint. We find this to be appropriate
action to take in response to the failings highlighted in your case. We cannot see that further
action is required here either. Therefore, I am sorry but we will be taking no further action
on your complaint.

Within your correspondence to us, you mention that you wanted to be able to pursue your
appeal of the original court decision. To explain, we cannot become involved in judicial
matters, however we have asked HMCTS about this so we can provide you with some advice.
HMCTS said that it is possible for you to lodge an appeal by way of case stated but this will be
outside of the deadline. You will therefore also need to include an application for your appeal
to be accepted late, providing reasons and any relevant supporting evidence. The out of time
application would then be considered by a judicial member who would decide whether this
should be allowed or refused. There is a fee to lodge an appeal by way of a case stated and
the Administrative Court have advised that this would be £240. HMCTS said that you may wish
to seek independent advice if you would like to discuss your case in more detail and the
merits of lodging an appeal and making an out of time application.

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Conclusion

We have carefully considered your complaint to us and decided not to consider it any further.
This is because it is our view that while there are failings by HMCTS in your case, it has taken
appropriate action to remedy this for you.

I am sorry if you are unhappy with our decision but I hope I have clearly explained the reasons
for this decision. I would like to take this opportunity to wish you the very best for the future.

Please note that we will be sending a copy of this letter to Melanie Onn MP as she referred
your complaint to us.

Yours sincerely