Summary: Mr D says the Council incorrectly rejected his application to exhibit at an event. We have found evidence of fault by the Council and have upheld the complaint and completed the investigation.

The complaint

1. The complainant (whom I refer to as Mr D) says the Council incorrectly rejected his application to exhibit at its “EVs for everyone” event in 2023. He complains the Council did not give a clear reason for its decision. Mr D also says the Council wrongly said he had been aggressive.

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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’. If there has been fault which has caused an injustice, we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)
3. If we are satisfied with an organisation’s actions or proposed actions, we can complete our investigation and issue a decision statement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 30(1B) and 34H(i), as amended)

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What I have and have not considered

4. I have investigated how the Council assessed Mr D’s application for the event and its subsequent complaint handling.
5. I have previously advised Mr D that I am not looking at the Council referring to aggressive behaviour. That is because the Ombudsman must consider whether any alleged fault resulted in an injustice that requires a remedy. In this matter the Council did not start its unreasonable behaviour process against Mr D or carry out any sanctions. Whilst I appreciate Mr D found some wording upsetting, I do not consider it resulted in a significant injustice procedurally that I could look to correct.

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How I considered this complaint

6. I have considered the information provided by Mr D. I asked the Council questions and examined its response.
7. I shared my draft decision with both parties.

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What I found

What happened

8. In April 2023 the Council publicised an upcoming event ‘EVs [electric vehicles] for everyone’. On 13 April Mr D asked the Council if he could be an exhibitor at the event. On 9 May an Officer told Mr D he was welcome to attend as a visitor rather than an exhibitor. The event was focussing on cars and vans. Mr D replied that he sold ‘Micro-Evs’ and would like to exhibit. On 17 May the Officer told Mr D it was not an event for Micro-Evs. Mr D told the Council he wanted to complain. The next day the Council replied that Micro-Evs were not included at the event due to space and infrastructure constraints. The event would focus on cars and vans. After further contact with Mr D the Council wrote to him on 24 May. It reiterated that Micro-Evs were not included in the event. The Council would assist him with another event and offered to introduce him to the organisers. The next day Mr D told the Council he had contacted the organisers of the other exhibition himself and it was too expensive. He asked about the selection process for the May event. On 27 May the ‘Evs for everyone’ event took place.
9. On 5 June the Council sent Mr D its complaint response. He had applied “relatively late” 10 days before the event. The decision to reject his application was incorrect. The Council did not say why the decision was wrong or give any information on the selection process. Mr D then pursued his case with the Council and said he had not applied late. On 19 June the Council sent its second complaint response. It had made the incorrect decision to exclude Mr D from the event “based on a misunderstanding of [his] product range”. If it held another similar event, it would “favourably” consider an application from him to be an exhibitor.

What should have happened

10. There is no set procedure for this process at the Council. I remain unclear about how the Council actually assessed each application for the event against any criteria. The criteria supplied by the Council is just the types of electric car and vans suppliers and infrastructure providers. That is a list of potential exhibitors not a selection criteria.
11. I would have expected the Council to have a clear list of what criteria an applicant must meet to be accepted as an exhibit. This could be as simple as a tick list. Where it was unclear for Officers what products an applicant wanted to exhibit, they should have asked the applicant to clarify so the criteria could be correctly assessed. Using a very basic application form would have enabled the Council to ask applicants at the outset about product range, etc.

Was there fault by the Council

12. There is fault by the Council.
13. As set out above I have not seen a clear application assessment process. This does not need to be a complicated system or time consuming. The Council should have had clear criteria that an applicant met in order to be accepted for the event. If an applicant did not provide enough information to be assessed this should have been requested and then considered. If that information was not provided then an application could have been rejected. Unfortunately, that did not happen in this case. The Council made assumptions about what product Mr D wanted to exhibit. In addition, Mr D failed to make clear which of his products he thought was suitable, and the Council did not clarify this with him. Because the Council made incorrect assumptions it wrongly rejected Mr D’s application.
14. In addition to that assessment failure the Council compounded its errors by giving incorrect and differing reasons for the rejection decision. It told Mr D he could not exhibit because of space and infrastructure constraints. It then said he had applied “relatively late”. That was wrong because Mr D had clearly expressed interest in the event soon after it was publicised. In the 19 June letter the Council told Mr D it had made an incorrect decision but failed to actually explain what the error was. That is not a reasonable response. I also note the Council never answered Mr D’s question about the selection process.
15. I do not see fault in the Council’s offer to introduce Mr D to the organisers of another event. There was no duty on the Council to do this and it was offered in goodwill. Mr D decided to approach the organisers himself and concluded the event was too expensive. That was his decision and there was no procedural fault by the Council.

Did the fault cause an injustice

16. Mr D was left confused as to why his application was rejected. I cannot say that he lost any potential business by being excluded from the event and so will not be asking for financial redress as that is not the Ombudsman’s primary aim.

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Agreed action

17. The Council says that it will learn from this case. For future events it will make more detailed checks on product ranges. It will also still favourably consider any future applications made for events from Mr D. In addition, I asked the Council to consider:
• Reviewing its application process for future events including whether to use an application form, have clear criteria for applicants to meet and how to document the decision making process.
• Send Mr D a formal letter of apology for the failings set out in this statement.
18. The Council has agreed to the recommended actions. It should provide us with evidence it has complied with the above actions within four weeks of this case closing.

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Final decision

19. I have upheld the complaint and completed the investigation.

Investigator’s decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman