Summary: The Ombudsman will not pursue Miss X’s complaint about not receiving a business grant and not having her appeal considered. There was no fault in the Council refusing the grant application. The Council’s not considering the appeal did not cause Miss X a significant injustice.

The complaint

1. Miss X complains the Council refused to give one of her businesses a discretionary grant and did not consider her appeal against that refusal. Miss X states this has worsened the business’ financial problems at a time when it could not operate because of the government’s Covid-19 restrictions.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. This complaint involves events that occurred during the Covid-19 pandemic. The Government introduced a range of new and frequently updated rules and guidance during this time. We can consider whether the council followed the relevant legislation, guidance and our published “Good Administrative Practice during the response to Covid-19”.
3. We investigate complaints of injustice caused by ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. I have used the word ‘fault’ to refer to these. We cannot question whether a council’s decision is right or wrong simply because the complainant disagrees with it. We must consider whether there was fault in the way the decision was reached. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended)
4. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word ‘fault’ to refer to these. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint. I refer to this as ‘injustice’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We may decide not to start or continue with an investigation if we believe: it is unlikely we would find fault, or the fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained, or the injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

5. I considered the information Miss X and the Council provided and discussed the complaint with Miss X. I gave Miss X the opportunity to comment on my draft decision.

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What I found

What happened

6. The government has given councils some funding for discretionary grants to businesses affected by the Covid-19 restrictions. Each council should have its own policy on making these discretionary grants.
7. The Council’s discretionary grant scheme, point 9.3, says:

‘Only one Discretionary Business Grant will be awarded to any business. This will also apply if more than one Limited Company has the same director(s) or where more than one business has the same proprietor (either sole traders or partnerships).’

The Council is entitled to have that policy. The Council’s scheme also states if it refuses an application, the applicant can appeal within two weeks.

8. Miss X has two businesses in similar lines of work. She applied for grants for both businesses. The Council gave one business a discretionary grant of £2,000. On 25 June 2020, the Council refused to give the other business a grant because of its policy described above.
9. Miss X had until 9 July to appeal against the refusal. She states she emailed an appeal to the Council on 2 July. The Council denies receiving that. This only became clear later in July, by which time the two-week timescale for appealing had passed. The Council said it would consider the appeal if Miss X provided evidence she had appealed on time. Miss X stated she no longer had a copy of her appeal email as her email system had deleted it. She reports sending the Council evidence of email correspondence with her bookkeeper, to whom Miss X says she had copied the appeal email. The Council declined to consider the appeal as it says on balance it was not persuaded the evidence showed the appeal had been sent on time.
10. The Council says it considered appeals from others who had received only one grant after applying for more than one grant but did not uphold any such appeals.
11. Miss X’s appeal statement explained the Covid-19 restrictions prevented her business operating, gave details of orders and income she had lost and stated she was ineligible for the government’s self-employment income support scheme.

My analysis

12. The Council’s policy was clear that, if someone ran more than one business, only one business would receive a grant. That policy applied to Miss X. So the Council’s refusal of Miss X’s application was in line with its policy and with what it knew of Miss X’s businesses. Therefore the Council properly reached that decision so, as paragraph 3 explained, I cannot criticise the decision although Miss X disagrees with the decision.
13. I have considered Miss X’s attempt to appeal. Given that:
• The refusal of the grant was in line with the Council’s policy;
• Miss X’s appeal did not contain any points addressing or seeking to overcome that refusal reason; and
• The Council did not uphold any appeals from others similarly affected;
14. I consider it unlikely, on the balance of probabilities, the Council would have changed its decision even if it had considered Miss X’s appeal. Therefore the Council’s refusal to consider the appeal did not cause Miss X a significant enough injustice in practical terms to justify the Ombudsman investigating whether there was fault on this point.

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Final decision

15. The Ombudsman should not investigate this complaint. This is because there is not enough evidence of fault in the Council refusing the grant and the Council’s refusal to consider the appeal did not disadvantage Miss X significantly enough to warrant investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman