Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about his application for a business support grant. There is insufficient evidence of fault which would warrant an investigation.

The complaint

1. Mr X says his application for a business support grant was declined because it did not meet the policy for the award of discretionary grants. He says the policy was unfair and discriminates against businesses which have no business address within the Council’s area or a permanent site to operate from.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. The Ombudsman investigates complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’, which we call ‘fault’. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint, which we call ‘injustice’. We provide a free service but must use public money carefully. We do not start or may decide not to continue with an investigation if we decide:

• there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating, or
• we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation.

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6))

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How I considered this complaint

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

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My assessment

5. Mr X is a market trader who attends markets in the Council’s area on two days per week. He applied for a business support grant due to the markets being closed in the COVID-19 pandemic, but the Council told him he did not meet its policy requirements for being a business based in its area. As a market trader he uses him home address in another council’s area and may attend markets in other areas than the Council’s.
6. Mr X believed the policy discriminated against traders who are self-employed and have no business address to run their trading from. The Council told him that the grants are discretionary and were subject to a limited amount of government funding. It decided that grants from the initial funding provided by government had to be restricted to certain business criteria because there was insufficient for all businesses who applied.
7. We may not question the merits of decisions which have been properly made. We do not comment on judgements councils make, unless they are affected by fault in the decision-making process. The decision on how to distribute the grant resources was which it had to decide.
8. Mr X was awarded a grant under a later lockdown support scheme which indicates that the Council was not fettering its discretion in how it distributed the grants.

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Final decision

9. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about his application for a business support grant. There is insufficient evidence of fault which would warrant an investigation.

Investigator’s decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman