Summary: The Ombudsman will not investigate Ms B complaint that the Council failed to provide a payment to her daughter for giving evidence of a company’s breach of its licensing conditions. This is because we would not be able to achieve the outcome Ms B is seeking.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I shall call Ms B, complained that, contrary to its guidelines, the Council failed to provide a payment to her daughter for giving evidence of a company’s breach of its licensing conditions. Ms B says she was put to a lot of trouble, by collating and providing evidence against the business.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
3. We cannot investigate a complaint about the start of court action or what happened in court. (Local Government Act 1974, Schedule 5/5A, paragraph 1/3, as amended)
4. 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
• it is unlikely further investigation will lead to a different outcome, or
• we cannot achieve the outcome someone wants. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

5. I have considered the information Ms B provided and her comments on my draft decision.

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What I found

6. Ms B says she told the Council that it would be better if it took action against the business because she was not in a position to do so. She told us she said to the Council she felt that a payment to her daughter would be appropriate when the court action concluded. This was for the damage her daughter suffered as a result of the actions of the business. Ms B says the Council then failed to tell her this would not be possible, neither confirming nor denying her request. Ms B says the Council left her with a tacit understanding there would be a payment and failed to correct any misconception.
7. The Council and not Ms B started the court proceedings. After the court case concluded, Ms B asked the Council about a compensation payment for her daughter. The Council told her there was no mechanism for it to make such a payment to her or her daughter. The Council said the evidence Ms B provided did not form any part of prosecution proceedings. But it said, due to data protection regulations, it could not disclose to her what evidence it did use. Based on newspaper reports she has read, Ms B says what happened in her daughter’s case was raised in court.
8. The press coverage Ms B has provided refers to some offences being witnessed by council officers and others being admitted by the business owner.
9. We cannot investigate any complaints about the Council’s conduct of the court proceedings. That includes complaints about the content of the Council’s case, how it conducted the proceedings and the content of any of its reports. We can, however, consider complaints about what happened before the Council decided to start court action.
10. Ms B says she wants us to make the Council make an ex-gratia payment to her daughter for the damage she suffered and to stop denying her and her daughter's part in the successful prosecution of the business. That is not something we can achieve for her. While there is no evidence to show the Council told Ms B a payment was not possible before it started proceedings, there is also no evidence it told her such a payment would be possible. There is not a sound enough basis for us to call on the Council to provide the remedy Ms B is seeking. We cannot investigate Ms B’s complaint about what the Council told her regarding about the evidence it used in the court case. This is because the law prevents us from investigating complaints about the conduct of court proceedings.

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Final decision

11. The Ombudsman will not investigate this complaint. This is because we would not be able to achieve the outcome the complainant is seeking.

Investigator’s final decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman