Birmingham City Council (24 020 803)
Category : Other Categories > Commercial and contracts
Decision : Closed after initial enquiries
Decision date : 28 Mar 2025
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about the Council’s failure to pay invoices on-time. This is because it would be reasonable for Mr X to take the matter to court.
The complaint
- Mr X complains the Council failed to pay three invoices on time and has refused to deal with his complaint.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
- The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
- The law says we cannot normally investigate a complaint when someone could take the matter to court. However, we may decide to investigate if we consider it would be unreasonable to expect the person to go to court. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(6)(c), as amended)
How I considered this complaint
- I considered information provided by Mr X and the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
- Where any business provides services to a council we would expect it to have a contract in place setting out the terms. This should include the amount payable and the timescales for payment. If the council breaches this agreement the business may then make a claim against it at court.
- It is not for us to decide whether the Council has breached the contractual arrangements in place with Mr X’s business and we cannot force the Council to pay. These are matters for the courts.
- I have seen nothing to suggest it would be unreasonable to expect Mr X to seek to enforce his contract with the Council at court and I will not therefore exercise my discretion to investigate the issue.
- Mr X is also unhappy with the way the Council dealt with his complaint. But it is not a good use of public resources to look at the Council’s complaints handling if we are not going to look at the substantive issue complained about. We will not therefore investigate this issue separately.
Final decision
- We will not investigate this complaint. This is because it would be reasonable for Mr X to take the matter to court.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman