Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council not giving Mr X’s business a grant.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains the Council advised him wrongly in a telephone call, resulting in his business not receiving a small business grant of £10,000 for businesses affected by COVID-19 restrictions.

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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 effect on the person making the complaint, which we call ‘injustice’. We provide a free service but must use public money carefully. We may decide not to start an investigation if the tests set out in our Assessment Code are not met. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided by the complainant and copy complaint correspondence from the Council.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. Mr X says he telephoned the Council and was told he was ineligible for the grant because his landlord, rather than Mr X, was liable for business rates on the property where Mr X’s business worked. Mr X says he accepted that explanation at the time, only later realising it was wrong. So he argues the Council should now pay him the equivalent of the £10,000 grant he did not receive.
6. The Council says it has no record of the telephone call. Mr X gave the Council his mobile telephone number. The Council has no record of a call from that number to its main telephone number, nor do Mr X’s call records show one. Mr X says he might have used another telephone. He also doubts he called the Council’s main number, believing he spoke directly to the business rates section. The Council says there is no publicly available number for the business rates section.
7. I note what Mr X says, and his argument that it is likely he telephoned the Council because he would have wanted to ask about the grant and indeed, he contacted a neighbouring council at the same time about a similar grant for his other business. However, the current evidence does not show the call took place.
8. Also, even if we were to decide, on balance, that Mr X telephoned the Council, that would not in itself enable us to decide, on balance, what was said. I note Mr X’s description of what he was told. However, it is unlikely we could reach a clear enough view of what Mr X and the Council each said (and understood the other to have said) about Mr X’s business address, Mr X’s situation at the time regarding business rates bills and eligibility for the grants. Therefore we cannot reasonably expect to establish clearly enough whether the Council was at fault for giving avoidably wrong advice or whether there was instead some misunderstanding by either party.

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Final decision

9. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because it is unlikely that investigation would enable us to reach a clear enough view.

Investigator’s decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman