Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s decision to vary a premises licence. Any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement.

The complaint

1. Miss X complains the Council, when it approved variations to a premises licence:
• discouraged her from taking part in a public consultation by telling her she had no right of appeal or hearing against its decision;
• failed to take into account her views, and the views of others, when making its decision; and
• presented inconsistent information on its licensing register, so was not clear about the scope of the application.

Miss X says this means there will be more noise disturbance from the premises and the approved licence conditions do not address it.

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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 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 continue an investigation if we decide any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

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How I considered this complaint

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

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My assessment

5. Our role is to consider complaints where the person bringing the complaint has suffered significant personal injustice as a direct result of the actions or inactions of the Council. This means we will normally only investigate a complaint where the complainant has suffered serious loss, harm, or distress as a direct result of faults or failures. We will not normally investigate a complaint where the alleged loss or injustice is not a serious or significant matter.
6. The Council approved minor changes to the premises licence under section 41A of the Licensing Act 2003. The Council was correct in law to say Mrs X could not appeal against its decision, so we could not criticise it for doing so. The changes reduced the permitted hours of potentially noisy operation by one hour every day. It also extended the premises opening hours on less than ten days a year by 30 minutes. The changes to the conditions include provisions to give the operators stronger powers to deal with disturbance from patrons. Mrs X disagrees.
7. The effect of the changes is to reduce the hours of potentially noisy operation every day by significantly more than any increase on a few days a year. There is therefore not enough evidence these and other changes would result in significant enough effects to warrant investigation
8. Miss X is unhappy with the way the Council handled the licence consultation period although it would appear she was able to comment on the application. The Council apologised for any administrative errors and explained the steps it would take to correct them. Whilst I appreciate Miss X may feel frustrated, this is not in itself significant enough injustice to warrant investigation. It is unlikely that any investigation by us would ask the Council to do more.

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Final decision

9. We will not investigate Miss X’s complaint because any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman