Calderdale Metropolitan Borough Council (21 014 087)

Category : Environment and regulation > COVID-19

Decision : Not upheld

Decision date : 15 Jun 2022

The Ombudsman's final decision:

Summary: We have discontinued our investigation into this complaint, about the Council’s private hire driver licensing process during the COVID-19 pandemic. This is because the Council has already addressed the main issues and further investigation will not achieve anything significant.

The complaint

  1. I will refer to the complainant as Mr K.
  2. Mr K complains about the Council’s decision to suspend its private hire driver licensing process for new applicants during the COVID-19 pandemic. He also complains the Council has introduced unnecessary requirements to its licensing policy, which have caused significant delays for applicants. As a result, Mr K says his business has lost drivers and customers.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

  1. 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.
  2. We do not start or may decide not to continue with an investigation if we decide further investigation would not lead to a different outcome, or that we cannot achieve the outcome someone wants. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6))

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How I considered this complaint

  1. I reviewed the correspondence between Mr K, prospective drivers for his business, and the Council, and sought clarification on the situation from the Council.
  2. I also shared a draft copy of this decision with each party for their comments.

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What I found

  1. Mr K runs an executive car hire business, based in the Council’s area. Both his drivers and vehicles need to be licensed by the Council to lawfully operate.
  2. The Council’s licensing policy requires that drivers complete certain checks before their licence can be issued. This includes a Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check, a professional standards test, and proficiency in the English language. Until recently, this involved applicants sitting a formal English language test.
  3. In March 2020, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Council suspended its licensing process for new applications. It says this suspension remained in place until January 2022.
  4. Mr K was in frequent contact with the Council from mid-2021, seeking to facilitate the licensing of new drivers for his firm. He subsequently made a complaint, saying the Council’s licensing requirements were difficult to meet, and that he had requested frequent calls from particular members of the Council’s licensing team but had not received these.
  5. The Council responded to explain it had suspended the application process because it relied on third-party organisations which could not operate properly during the pandemic. It also explained the Council had been implementing a ‘COVID-secure’ way of working. It acknowledged Mr K had not received some calls he had requested, but noted there had been email contact with officers.
  6. The Council confirmed the application process would re-open in the New Year. It also confirmed it would be reviewing the English language requirement of the policy in the near future.
  7. Mr K referred his complaint to the Ombudsman on 20 December 2021. Since then, the Council has confirmed it reopened the application process. It has also confirmed that, since March, it has changed its policy to allow applicants to satisfy the English language requirement by demonstrating appropriate qualifications (such as GCSEs), rather than sitting a formal test. This is because the test centre had a significant backlog which was causing delays.

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Analysis

  1. I will first note that it is difficult to consolidate some of the information I have here. The Council has explained its licensing process was suspended to new applicants between March 2020 and January 2022. However, much of the correspondence between Mr K and the Council, from mid-2021 to the end of the year, appears to concern (then current) problems with the application process for new drivers – for example, backlogs at the English test centre and difficulties obtaining a medical check. It is not clear to me why these matters were being addressed while the application process was supposed to be under suspension.
  2. Either way, I am not persuaded further investigation by the Ombudsman could achieve anything worthwhile here.
  3. Mr K’s complaint rests on two broad points: the Council’s suspension of the licensing process, and the requirements of its policy. But both of these decisions were for the Council to make. The Ombudsman’s role is to review how councils have made their decisions; we do not make decisions on their behalf. So it is not for us to consider whether it was appropriate for the Council to suspend applications, or when it should have re-opened the process; and nor is it for us to direct the Council what checks it should require drivers to have, and how they should go about obtaining those checks.
  4. This is not to say we could not criticise the Council for how it has administered the process, but on the information currently available to me, I do not see any obvious evidence of fault here. Rather, it appears that officers sought to facilitate the process as far as possible, within the constraints placed on them by the Council’s policy and the COVID-19 pandemic.
  5. Moreover, now the suspension has been lifted, and the new English language proficiency process introduced, it is difficult to see what further investigation could achieve here.
  6. I am conscious Mr K considers his business has suffered considerably because of problems with the Council’s handling of licences. I do not, in any way, seek to dismiss this. However, the simple fact there have been delays in the process does not mean we can criticise the Council – as I have said, there is no obvious evidence these delays have arisen from administrative fault.
  7. Nor can we decide the Council is liable for any losses the business has suffered. Liability is a complex legal matter which only the courts can consider, and so, regardless of any findings I could make here, I would not be able to recommend the Council make good any alleged losses.
  8. I also note Mr K complains he found it difficult to contact officers at times, and in particular that he requested calls which he subsequently did not receive. I also note the Council does not dispute this.
  9. Again, I do not dismiss Mr K’s frustration at this. But there is no absolute requirement on licensing officers to call applicants or other interested parties, simply because they have requested this, and I can see there was frequent email contact between Mr K and several officers. The Council has also explained that its licensing team faced staffing problems, with absences due to COVID-19, and officers being required to address short-notice changes in regulation, as well as helping administer the Government business support grant schemes. Under such circumstances we would not criticise the Council for being unable to provide the level of contact it might otherwise seek to.
  10. As a publicly-funded body, we are required to consider carefully the value of an investigation before we decide to begin one, or to continue one we have already begun. Taking everything together, I do not consider further investigation here would be proportionate.

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Final decision

  1. I have discontinued my investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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