Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about the Council’s decision to refuse his applications for COVID-19 local restrictions support grants. This is because the complaint is late and there is not enough evidence of fault by the Council.

The complaint

1. The complainant, Mr X, complains the Council wrongly refused his applications for Local Restrictions Support Grants (LRSG) for businesses which were forced to close due to the COVID-19 pandemic. He says the Council wrongly decided his business was allowed to stay open when he believes it was required to close.

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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)
3. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate. We cannot investigate late complaints unless we decide there are good reasons. Late complaints are when someone takes more than 12 months to complain to us about something a council has done. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26B and 34D, as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

4. I considered information provided by Mr X and the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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Background

5. Mr X applied for the LRSGs in late 2020/early 2021 and the Council confirmed its final decision to refuse his applications in March 2021.
6. Mr X continued to dispute the Council’s decisions and complained about them under Stage 1 of its complaints procedure in September 2021. The Council responded to Mr X’s complaint in November 2021 stating there were no grounds to change its decision, so Mr X requested escalation to Stage 2 of the complaints process in December 2021. He did not receive a response to his Stage 2 complaint so he contacted the Council again in February 2022. The Council issued a final response to the complaint in August 2022.
7. Mr X referred his complaint to us in November 2022 but we did not receive his correspondence. He wrote to us again in March 2023 and we registered his complaint at that point.

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My assessment

8. Because Mr X took more than 12 months to complain to us about the Council’s decisions his complaint is late. I have seen no good reasons for the delay in bringing the complaint to us and I have therefore decided not to exercise our discretion to investigate it.
9. Mr X knew about the Council’s decisions in late 2020/early 2021 and had a “final decision” not to award him the grants in March 2021. The Council provided details of its complaints process in April 2021, including his right to bring the matter to us, but he did not refer the complaint to us until some 19 months later.
10. There does seem to have been some delay by the Council in dealing with Mr X’s complaint but I do not consider this provides a good enough reason to disapply our time limit in this case. Mr X has continually raised the same points with the Council as the reasons he should have qualified for the grant but the Council’s responses at every stage have confirmed its belief that the decision was correct.
11. The information on the Council’s website correctly shows that we expect councils to respond to complaints within 12 weeks and if a council has not responded within this time we may decide to consider the matter without a final response. Mr X had information about our service from April 2021 and could have sought advice from us about the process but there is no evidence to show he did.
12. However, even if we decided to disapply our time limit in this case it is unlikely we would investigate the complaint further, or that we could achieve any worthwhile outcome for Mr X.
13. This is because we are not an appeal body. This means we do not take a second look at a decision to decide if it was wrong. Instead, we look at the processes an organisation followed to make its decision. If we consider it followed those processes correctly we cannot question whether the decision was right or wrong, even though a complainant may disagree with it.
14. The Council has considered Mr X’s arguments at every stage but confirmed its understanding that his business was not required to close under the relevant Regulations. Mr X disagrees with this point but it concerns the Council’s interpretation of the Regulations and it is not for us to say this was wrong.
15. Mr X has quoted from various guidance and online publications about requirements to close businesses over the relevant period but it is the Regulations themselves which set out which businesses were required to close and they do not specifically state that Mr X’s business should close. It is therefore unlikely we could say the Council’s decisions not to award the LRSGs were wrong or affected by fault.
16. Mr X is also unhappy with the way the Council dealt with his complaint. But it is not a good use of public resources to look at the Council’s complaints handling if we are not going to look at the substantive issue complained about. We will not therefore investigate this issue separately.

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Final decision

17. We will not investigate this complaint. This is because the complaint is late and there is not enough evidence of fault by the Council.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman