Summary: There was no fault in how the Council considered the complainant’s application for a COVID-19 business support grant, nor any evidence a Council officer harassed him during a phone call. The Council was at fault because it did not properly consider the complainant’s request for a transcript of the call, but this did not cause him an injustice. We have therefore completed our investigation.

The complaint

1. I will refer to the complainant as Dr P.
2. Dr P complains about the Council’s handling of his application to its additional restrictions grant (ARG) scheme. In particular, he says:

• the Council did not consider his application fairly and should have granted it; and
• a Council officer harassed him during a call; and
• the Council refused to provide him with a copy of the call recording.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. 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’. If there has been fault which has caused an injustice, we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)
4. If we are satisfied with an organisation’s actions or proposed actions, we can complete our investigation and issue a decision statement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 30(1B) and 34H(i), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

5. I reviewed Dr P’s correspondence with the Council and listened to a recording of the call between him and a Council officer.
6. I also shared a draft copy of this decision with each party for their comments.

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What I found

7. The following is a summary of the key points relevant to this complaint. It is not intended to provide a detailed account of everything which happened.
8. Dr P runs an online business. He has disabilities which cause him difficulties in processing information. In January 2021, he contacted the Council to ask what support it was offering to businesses affected by COVID-19 lockdown restrictions, and in response the Council explained about the then current additional restrictions grant scheme. This scheme offered a grant to businesses which could show at least a 30% drop in income compared to previous years. However, Dr P was unable to apply successfully to this scheme.
9. We have previously investigated a complaint from Dr P about this, and we found fault because the Council had not allowed Dr P to make a verbal application to the scheme, as he had requested. We also criticised the Council for failing to inform Dr P when the ARG scheme criteria changed, as it had offered to do. As a result of this, the Council agreed to allow Dr P to make a late, verbal application to the ARG scheme.
10. In May 2022, the Council wrote to Dr P, acknowledging the faults we had found in our investigation and offering him the opportunity to make a late application to the scheme. It asked Dr P first to submit his business bank statements, and then said it could facilitate him making a verbal application, either by phone or by visiting the Council offices in person, with a Council officer filling in the form on his behalf.
11. Over the following weeks Dr P exchanged a series of emails with a Council officer. He explained that he did not use online business banking and asked the Council to accept evidence from his PayPal account instead, which it agreed to do.
12. Dr P then submitted some evidence from PayPal. However, the Council responded to explain it needed him to submit detailed PayPal statements to evidence his application, not screenshots and photographs of his overall sales figures, which is what he had provided. The Council told Dr P where he could access the statements in his PayPal account.
13. During this email exchange the Council also arranged an appointment for Dr P to have a phone call with a Council officer, to complete his application form. The call took place at the end of June. During and after the call, Dr P complained the Council officer had “harassed” him.
14. On 8 July the Council wrote to Dr P to explain it had refused his ARG application. It said this was because he had not provided the evidence it had requested, and could not show his business had suffered the qualifying 30% drop in income.
15. Separate to this, on 11 July, the Council wrote to Dr P to address his complaint about the phone call. It noted Dr P had been sent a list of the questions from the application form in advance, to prepare him for what the officer would ask during the call. It also noted it had agreed to allow Dr P to submit evidence from PayPal, rather than bank statements, but it had already explained to him the evidence he had provided was not what the Council needed.
16. The Council said the call had become difficult, with Dr P refusing to answer some questions and to complete the application. He had made several allegations of harassment and discrimination during the call. The officer had given Dr P a further opportunity to provide the correct information from PayPal but he had declined to do so. The Council said the officer had not harassed Dr P simply by asking him the questions from the application form and rejected his allegations.
17. The Council explained again it had refused Dr P’s application because he had not provided the necessary evidence, and said his disability had had no bearing on this decision.
18. After a further complaint from Dr P, the Council wrote to him again on 2 September. It repeated it had found no evidence the officer had harassed him during the phone call in June. The Council acknowledged Dr P had shown evidence of a 30% drop in sales “over various periods between 2019 and 2021”, these did not show a 30% drop in income between January to March 2020 and January to March 2021, as required by the ARG scheme.
19. The Council noted Dr P had also now complained about the officer’s handling of his request for a copy of the call recording. The Council said it had been unable to do this by email because of the size of the file, but it had sent it by file transfer instead, which Dr P confirmed he had received.
20. The Council had also offered to allow Dr P to collect a CD, but he had rejected this and insisted it be posted by recorded delivery. Shortly after this he had also requested a transcript of the call.
21. Dr P later told the Council he would not accept a CD as he had no means to use one, and requested a digital file instead. The Council did so and Dr P acknowledged receipt. Dr P then repeated his request for a transcript, but the Council refused to do this because he had access to an audio recording of the call. Taking this together, the Council again refuted Dr P’s claim the officer had harassed him.
22. Dr P then referred his complaint to the Ombudsman.

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Legislative background

Additional restrictions grant scheme

23. Due to the impact of COVID-19 restrictions on businesses, the Government gave councils funding to provide support to them under a range of different schemes, including the ARG scheme.
24. The Council introduced its ARG scheme in December 2020. Eligible businesses had to evidence a minimum of 30% loss in turnover from 1 September to 30 November 2020 compared to the same period in 2019 to qualify for a grant.
25. In April 2021 the Council expanded its scheme to include more businesses. It published an updated policy. Small businesses operating from dwellings (which includes Dr P’s business) had to evidence a 30% drop in income between January and March 2020 and January and March 2021.

Reasonable adjustments

26. The reasonable adjustment duty is set out in the Equality Act 2010 and applies to anybody which carries out a public function. It aims to make sure a disabled person can use a service as close as it is reasonably possible to get to the standard usually offered to non-disabled people.
27. When the duty arises, service providers are under a positive and proactive duty to take steps to remove or prevent obstacles to accessing their service. If the adjustments are reasonable, they must make them.
28. The Ombudsman cannot find that a body in jurisdiction has breached the Equality Act. However, we can find a body at fault for failing to take account of their duties under the Equality Act.

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Analysis

29. Dr P complains the Council has unfairly refused his ARG application. In particular, he says he has been unable to access the evidence the Council says it requires from PayPal due to a change in how it processes payments, and he considers the Council should instead compare different periods for his business. Dr P considers the Council is discriminating against him because of this.
30. The evidence Dr P submitted to the Council was a photograph, and a screenshot, of his sales figures from PayPal. In response, the Council explained it needed statements from PayPal instead. It also explained to Dr P how to obtain this, pointing out the ‘statements’ button was visible in the screenshot he had submitted. It is clear Dr P did not follow the Council’s advice, and this is the reason it then refused his application. I do not consider there is any fault here, and the Council was entitled to refuse his application when he did not provide the right evidence.
31. I discussed this with Dr P when I spoke to him at the beginning of my investigation. He said he had not understood what the Council had asked him to do, and said it had discriminated against him by not calling him to talk him through the evidence it required.
32. I do not agree. Although the Council agreed a reasonable adjustment for Dr P to complete his application verbally, most of his correspondence with the Council was in writing. The Council gave clear advice how to obtain the evidence it needed, and had no reason to assume he had failed to understand this.
33. I find no fault in this element of Dr P’s complaint.
34. Dr P also complains the Council officer “harassed” him during the phone call.
35. I have listened to the recording of the call, but I do not share Dr P’s view of it. He began to make allegations of harassment against the officer only because she asked him to provide information he considered he had already submitted. However, the officer was simply attempting to complete the form as it was written, and I note Dr P had already been sent a list of the questions from the form, and so should have been aware of what the officer would ask. I do not consider this can reasonably be seen as a form of harassment.
36. The officer also generally remained calm, polite and professional throughout the call, despite Dr P being very irate and raising his voice for much of the conversation. I see no reason at all to criticise the officer for how she handled this phone call.
37. I find no fault in this element of Dr P’s complaint.
38. Dr P also complains about how the Council handled his request for a copy of the phone call. In particular, in writing to us, he alleged the Council was refusing to release the recording to him.
39. I note the Council had already provided Dr P with a file transfer of the recording by this point. There was then some difficulty in providing him with a CD copy of the recording, but this was clearly for administrative reasons, and there is nothing here to suggest the Council was reluctant to release the recording. In addition, Dr P later said he could not use a CD copy of the recording anyway.
40. However, Dr P then requested a transcript of the recording as well. The Council replied to say it did not consider this was a reasonable adjustment because he already had the recording in audio format. In response to this, Dr P said he was unable to listen to the recording and make notes at the same time, which is why he needed the transcript. I cannot see any evidence the Council addressed this comment.
41. I acknowledge the Council’s point that Dr P had the audio recording already, but he then provided a potentially valid reason why he would benefit from having a transcript as well. The Council had a duty to consider this new information, but did not.
42. This is not to say I find the Council should have provided Dr P with a transcript. This remains a decision for the Council to make, and it would still be entitled to refuse Dr P’s request if it considered it unreasonable. But the Council should at least show it has considered the request properly. I therefore find fault on this point.
43. On balance, however, I am not persuaded this represents a significant injustice to Dr P. Dr P’s purpose in requesting the call recording was to pursue his complaint of alleged harassment by the officer; but I have now listened to call recording in full and found no evidence to support the complaint. That Dr P does not have access to a transcript of the call has made no difference to his ability to pursue the complaint, and nor we would consider the complaint again, even if the Council were now to provide him with a transcript.
44. I find fault, which did not cause injustice, in this element of Dr P’s complaint.

Conclusions

45. I find no fault in the Council’s consideration of Dr P’s ARG application. The Council explained to Dr P what evidence he needed to present and how to obtain it, but he did not do this. The Council was entitled to refuse his application under these circumstances.
46. I find no fault in the conduct of the Council officer during her call with Dr P. She did not harass him and remained professional throughout.
47. There is no evidence the Council was reluctant to release the call recording to Dr P, and indeed it had already done so when he made this complaint. Although there was subsequent difficulty providing him with a CD copy of the recording, this was not due to Council fault.
48. The Council was at fault for not properly considering Dr P’s request for a transcript of the call, but this did not cause Dr P an injustice, as he was able to pursue his complaint about the call anyway.

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Final decision

49. I have completed my investigation with a finding of fault which did not cause injustice.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman