Summary: There was fault in the Council’s refusal to accept the recommendation of its own complaint investigator, to offer the complainant a payment to reflect the inconvenience he had experienced, because of the Council’s mishandling of his application for a flood recovery grant. The Council has now agreed to make this payment.

The complaint

1. I will refer to the complainant as Mr J.
2. Mr J says the Council did not inform him of the deadline to apply for a flood recovery grant, which meant he missed out on the payment. He also says the Council repeatedly failed to engage with his correspondence on this issue. Although the Council has now retrospectively paid the grant, Mr J complains it did not accept the recommendation of its own investigator, to offer him an additional payment to reflect the inconvenience he had been put to.

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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 significant injustice, or that could cause injustice to others in the future we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

4. I considered evidence provided by Mr J and the Council as well as relevant law, policy and guidance.
5. I also shared a draft decision with each party for their comments.

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What I found

6. Mr J’s property suffered flood damage after a storm in January 2024. In the aftermath of the storm, the Government announced a scheme to allow affected householders to apply for a grant of £500, to assist with recovery costs. The scheme was called the community recovery grant (CRG) and was to be administered by local authorities.
7. Mr J contacted the Council in January to ask about applying to the scheme. The Council replied to say it was waiting for more information. In March, Mr J obtained an application form for the scheme, but says neither the form nor the Council’s website mentioned a deadline for applications. He then submitted his application in April, and received an automatic response saying the Council would consider the application in the next 10 days.
8. Having received no further contact, Mr J says he chased the Council in May, but received only the same automatic response. In June Mr J spoke to a council officer during a site visit, who said he would follow it up, but Mr J says he heard nothing further from him, despite his repeated attempts to contact the officer between June and August.
9. After contacting his councillor in October, Mr J finally received a response from the Council the next day, which informed him the scheme had closed at the end of March, and his application had therefore missed the deadline.
10. Mr J made a complaint the Council a few days later. He said at no point had the Council publicised the deadline, and highlighted it had only made the application forms available in March.
11. The Council responded to Mr J’s complaint in November. At this stage it did not uphold it. However, after he escalated his complaint to the stage 2, the Council’s complaint investigator agreed the Council had been at fault. The investigator said they had recommended the Council should now pay him the grant retrospectively, which it had agreed to do, but it had declined to offer him a further payment to reflect the inconvenience he had been put to.
12. Mr J then referred his complaint to the Ombudsman in January.

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Analysis

13. Mr J has confirmed he received the £500 CRG payment from the Council in January. The core aspect of his complaint is therefore resolved. However, the question remains whether the Council should also offer an additional payment to reflect Mr J’s inconvenience, as recommended by the Council’s own complaint investigator.
14. The complaint investigator quoted the response they had received from the relevant service team, which said it did “not agree that there has been a lack of communication with [Mr J]”, and that it was “still receiving requests for funding after the deadline has closed with other homeowners”.
15. I note, though, this makes no effort to address the details Mr J provided in his complaint, setting out the various failed attempts he had made to elicit a meaningful response from the Council. Nor does it explain the relevance of the fact other homeowners were still contacting the Council about the grant. This answer does not, in my view, justify a refusal to recognise the inconvenience Mr J had experienced.
16. On balance, therefore, I consider the Council to be at fault for failing to agree to this recommendation, and that this caused Mr J an injustice as a result. I am satisfied a further payment is appropriate here.

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Action

17. Within one month of the date of my final decision, the Council has agreed to offer to pay Mr J £150 to reflect the inconvenience he was put to, by its failure to engage with him over a prolonged period.
18. The Council should provide us with evidence it has complied with the above actions.

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Decision

19. I find fault causing injustice.

Investigator’s decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman