Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s contact with X, relating to their taxi-licence. This is because there is no worthwhile outcome achievable by us investigating.

The complaint

1. X complained saying they were approached by Council staff who challenged them, while they were using their private hire motor vehicle. X said at this incident, the officers accused them of misusing their taxi and because of this X gave up their private and driver taxi licences. X wants the Council to re-issue them with a new licence to allow them to operate as private hire.

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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 there is no worthwhile outcome achievable by our investigation. (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 and I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

4. X said in May 2024, they were approached by three Council officers who confronted them about their use of a private hire motor vehicle. X said after this they surrendered their taxi and driver licence. The Council replied to X’s complaint about this matter in November 2024, but X did not then make another complaint to us until April 2026.
5. We will not investigate this complaint. We only investigate those complaints where there is clear systemic fault by the Council, and it is of a type or scale there is a significant public interest in exposing and correcting it.
6. There is now a significant passage of time where X has left their complaint to lie for a long period of time, particularly after they had a final response in late 2024. This will have limited the relevance of an investigation, because we may not be able to gather all the relevant evidence, and could not make up to date service improvement recommendations. In addition to this, we could not direct the Council to re-issue X with their licences, and it is not our role to investigate complaints about staff incivility.
7. Given my considerations about the limit of what we could do here, I will not investigate this complaint because there is no worthwhile outcome achievable.

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Final decision

8. We will not investigate X’s complaint because there is no worthwhile outcome achievable by us investigating.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman