Almost 9,000 council tax support letters with incorrect personal data issued by Plymouth City Council
A retired detective has uncovered how Plymouth City Council has used incorrect personal data supplied by an agency to check people’s right to council tax support.
Gary Smith started investigating when his mother-in-law who lives alone was sent a letter questioning her entitlement to the single person’s 25 per cent bill reduction.
The letter to the 81-year-old widow, who lives in the Crownhill area, said that as a result of "data matching intelligence including government data" the council had identified that someone had financial links to her address and may be living there.
The letter said unless she responded in 14 days confirming she lived alone, she would lose the council tax discount. Mr Smith said his mother-in-law had lived at the address for more than 50 years and had been on her own since the death of her husband in 1997.
The former detective inspector was worried that the information meant someone was using the address for a fraud, and started his own investigation to find out how the mistake had been made.
He contacted the city council, and was told that the credit reference agency Experian had supplied details of a woman with the same name as his mother-in-law, but a different date of birth, linked to the address, in a record created on October 5, 2002.
Mr Smith said when he contacted Experian to amend or delete the false information, he was told it had been the result of a "technical issue" when retrieving her details.
Mr Smith said Experian told him there was no financial link to the address and the issue should not have been flagged up to the city council.
The retired detective was told almost 9,000 similar review letters had been issued by the council, and added he was aware of at least one other case where the information included was wrong.
He said he wanted to raise the issue publicly to warn people that they may lose the right to the single person’s council tax discount if they failed to respond to the council’s letter, even if they still qualified for the benefit.
Mr Smith accused the council of failing to take the problem seriously enough, and said it should appoint a senior officer to carry out a full investigation and check the accuracy of the information in each letter.
Experian said it moved quickly to correct the error after it was brought to its attention. The city council said it regularly reviewed discounts and entitlements to prevent fraud and protect public funds, and sent letters to households to double-check information it received.
The council said the error in this case was in data supplied by a third party and had been corrected after the letter had brought it to the customer’s attention, and it was always working to adapt the single person discount reviews to minimise data quality issues.
"l think that Plymouth City Council and Experian have acted totally unprofessionally and irresponsibly when dealing with this issue. When l contacted Plymouth City Council they provided inaccurate responses on two occasions, even though l had made a request under the Data Protection Act.
"Plymouth City Council were the customers of Experian but refused to intervene on our behalf. Experian have now admitted liability and offered my mother-in-law £50 compensation for the mistakes that have been made.
"The £50 compensation has been refused as it is not about compensating my mother-in-law, l raise this issue to alert others to ensure that their records are accurately recorded.
"One of Plymouth City Council mission statements is ‘We are responsible, we take responsibility for our actions,’ it is my experience they do not. Plymouth City Council need to appoint a senior officer to sort out this mess.
"I am aware that my mother-in-law is not the only person whose data has been retrieved incorrectly. My advice to any of the 9,000 people who were sent letters regarding the discount that they receive on their council tax is to contact Plymouth City Council and Experian to ensure their record is accurate."
Gary Smith - Retired Detective
Mr Smith said he had reported Experian to the Information Commissioner’s Office for a breach of the Data Protection Act, and complained to the Local Government Ombudsman about the council’s actions.
"We work hard to rectify obvious mistakes in the information we receive and to help people resolve any issues they identify. Once this particular issue was brought to our attention, we moved quickly to update our records and trust they will experience no further issues. We are sorry for any inconvenience and distress this matter has caused."
Experian Spokesperson
"Each year we carry out a number of reviews to ensure that discounts and entitlements are correctly applied for revenues and benefits. One of these reviews is for the 25 per cent single person discount (SPD) for council tax. This helps us to prevent fraud and protect public funds.
"Like many local authorities, we use a number of data sources including credit reference agencies to regularly review SPD recipients to identify the possibility of another adult living in a property.
"For example, if a child or adult that has left the property has a phone contract that is still registered to an address, this might show up in the cross referencing and would indicate occupancy.
"It is not uncommon for these types of links to exist and we understand that this doesn’t mean that there are definitely undeclared adults in the property so we write to the household concerned to double check if this is the case.
"In this instance, the credit reference agency identified a date of birth discrepancy associated with the customer’s data which they were able to correct. The error was not in the council’s data, and might have caused issues for the customer if we had not brought it to their attention.
"We work with partners and customers to develop processes to ensure they are meeting all requirements and are always trying to adapt our single person discount reviews to minimise data quality issues."
Plymouth City Council Spokesperson
Mr Smith has contacted Plymouth Moor View MP Johnny Mercer about the case. A spokesperson for the MP said he was monitoring developments and encouraged anyone who had experienced similar problems with incorrect data in a review letter from the council to get in touch.
The council said more information on the council tax single person discount could be found on its website at www.plymouth.gov.uk/counciltax/singlepersondiscountreview.