Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about the Council’s handling of his complaint against a local taxi company. This is because the Council’s actions did not cause Mr X significant personal injustice for which we would recommend a remedy.

The complaint

1. The complainant, Mr X, complains about the Council’s handling of their complaint against a local taxi company. He says he is worried the Council has unfairly treated the taxi driver and that he may have similar issues with other taxi companies in the future. He is also upset the Council sought to undermine his account of what happened.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We may decide not to start or continue with an investigation if we believe:

• it is unlikely we would find fault, or
• the fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained, or
• the injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement.

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

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How I considered this complaint

3. I reviewed the information provided by Mr X, shared my draft decision with him and considered his comments.

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What I found

4. Mr X booked a taxi to pick him up in 2019. The taxi did not arrive and Mr X contacted the company and asked to speak to the controller. But his calls were passed to the driver and the driver told him he could not speak to the controller. Despite the driver insisting he was outside, Mr X could not find him.
5. The Council licences taxi drivers and operators and only issues licences to those people it considers ‘fit and proper’ to hold a licence. It operates a complaints process to deal with complaints from members of the public about licensed drivers or the service they have received but does not take on responsibility for the actions of the taxi driver or company.
6. Mr X complained to the Council about the service he received from the taxi company in 2019. He was concerned about what could have happened, had he been a vulnerable person in a more rural location, and wanted to know what steps the Council and the company had taken to ensure it did not happen again.
7. Mr X did not receive a response from the Council so emailed twice more asking it to deal with the issue. The Council spoke to the driver and responded in December 2019 but Mr X was not happy with its response. He says the Council partly blamed the driver and suggested there was some confusion and miscommunication.
8. Mr X disputed the Council’s explanation and said there was no miscommunication on his part. He said the taxi company’s telephone system made the issue worse and because nothing had changed it may happen again.
9. The Council responded to Mr X explaining its duty is to ensure drivers are fit and proper to hold a licence and that they have “passengers welfare and safety at heart”. It acknowledged Mr X’s frustration but confirmed it had spoken to the driver and did not see what more it could achieve.
10. Mr X then spoke to the taxi company and emailed the Council again. He suggested the issue lay with the company’s maps and the postcode for his pickup. He asked the Council to discuss this with the company and advise whether the explanation was reasonable.
11. Mr X received no response from the Council to his email; the Council later explained this was because the person he emailed had left and the matter was not passed on to anyone else to deal with. Mr X forwarded his email to the Licensing department in May 2020 and submitted a formal complaint in June. The Council then responded and confirmed the explanation provided by the company but also suggested the driver had ‘overshot’ the pickup location. However it accepted the company had corrected the details and that this resolved the matter.
12. Mr X remained unhappy with the Council’s response and the explanation about what had happened. He also refuted any suggestion the driver had contributed to the issue and is concerned they may have received a warning he did not deserve.

Assessment

13. The Council’s role in this matter was to investigate Mr X’s complaint about the taxi company. It had no role in the actions of the taxi company and is not responsible for its delay in picking him up. Had the Council decided the actions of the driver were not those of a ‘fit and proper’ person, or that the company’s service fell so far below what is required that its licence should be suspended or revoked, the Council could have taken action against the driver and/or the company to stop them from operating.
14. But Mr X’s complaint does not concern such an issue. The Council is satisfied the problem resulted from an issue with the company’s maps and may have involved some driver error; while Mr X may disagree with the Council’s conclusions and is unhappy about its delay in dealing with his complaint, this did not cause him significant personal injustice for which we would recommend a remedy.
15. Mr X was concerned about what could have happened on the night of his pickup but the Council’s consideration of the issue took place after the event and did not affect this. Mr X was aware the Council did not intend to pursue the matter in December 2019 but continued to write to challenge this as he was not satisfied with the explanations he received. He believes the Council should audit all operators to ensure their map systems are correct but there is no basis for this. The taxi company’s actions did not call into question its fitness to hold a licence and the Council is satisfied with the steps it took to deal with the matter. The Council has not told Mr X it issued the driver a warning but even if it has, this does not affect Mr X personally.

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Final decision

16. We will not investigate this complaint. This is because the Council’s handling of Mr X’s complaint about the taxi company did not cause Mr X significant injustice.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman