Summary: We have not investigated most of this complaint, as it relates to events which are out of time for our purposes. And we have found no fault in the remaining part of the complaint, which is about the Council’s decision to refuse the complainant’s application for a restart grant. We have therefore completed our investigation.

The complaint

1. I will refer to the complainant as Mr W.
2. Mr W complains the Council refused his applications for a series of COVID-19 business support grants.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word ‘fault’ to refer to these.
4. We cannot investigate late complaints unless we decide there are good reasons. Late complaints are when someone takes more than 12 months to complain to us about something a council has done. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26B and 34D, as amended)
5. We consider whether there was fault in the way an organisation made its decision. If there was no fault in the decision making, we cannot question the outcome. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended)
6. 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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How I considered this complaint

7. I reviewed Mr W’s correspondence with the Council.
8. I also shared a draft copy of this decision with each party for their comments.

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What I found

9. Between December 2020 and April 2021, Mr W applied to the Council for several COVID-19 support grants for businesses in his name. The Council refused each one, with its decision on the final application, for a restart grant, coming in January 2022.
10. On 11 March 2022, Mr W made a complaint to the Council about its decisions on these applications. The Council responded on 21 March, setting out in detail its reasons for refusing each application.
11. With regard to the restart grant, the Council explained that, at the time of Mr W’s application in April 2021, the address he had given on the form was not registered for business rates. The Council said it had contacted Mr W again in May to advise him the deadline for application was 30 June. It said it had been informed on 3 June the premises was registered for business rates, but the registration was then temporarily withdrawn because Mr W had not provided the Council with the correct information. This meant the Council could not formally consider Mr W’s restart grant application until October.
12. The Council explained it had a duty to confirm applicant businesses had been trading on 1 April 2021, which was a qualifying criterion for the restart grant scheme. The Council had therefore decided to visit the address Mr W had given, but this had not given it “the expected level of reassurance” that a business was operating from the premises.
13. Later in October a Council officer had spoken to Mr W and asked him to provide a range of supporting evidence to show the operation of his business, including records of takings, utility bills, consumables and wages for any staff. The Council said Mr W had agreed to do this by the week of 1 November, to enable the Council to make its decision by 5 November. However, it said Mr W did not provide any information until 1 December, which was a profit and loss report with no corroborating evidence. The Council responded the next day asking Mr W for further information.
14. The Council said Mr W had then not responded further until 31 January 2021 (this is presumably a typing error and should read ‘2022’). In this response Mr W clarified his utility bills were incorporated into his rent, but still provided no evidence of the business’s turnover. Because Mr W had failed to provide the necessary information several times, the Council therefore decided to close Mr W’s application.
15. In closing the Council said it had reviewed its records, and was satisfied its requests for information from Mr W were reasonable. It acknowledged some businesses found it more difficult to provide evidence, but said it could approve payment in the absence of such evidence.
16. Mr W then made a complaint to the Ombudsman on 28 June.

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Legislative background

17. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic the Government has created various different schemes to support businesses affected by lockdown restrictions. It gave money to local authorities to fund these schemes, as well as guidance on how it expected they should be applied.
18. One of these schemes was the restart grant, which was designed to help businesses as the country came out of the third national lockdown.
19. To qualify for the scheme, a business had to be:

• the liable ratepayer for the relevant premises on 1 April 2021;
• engaged in offering in-person services in the relevant sectors; and
• trading (engaged in business activity) on 1 April 2021.

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Analysis

20. Mr W’s complaint to the Council refers to three grants he applied for between December 2020 and March 2021, but each of which the Council refused. However, Mr W did not complain to the Council about this until June 2022.
21. The law says a person should approach the Ombudsman within 12mths of becoming aware of the matter they wish to complain about – this means the substantive matter at the heart of the complaint, not the relevant authority’s formal response to the complaint. As these three decisions happened more than 12mths before Mr W complained to the Ombudsman, they are late.
22. The law allows us some flexibility on this rule, but we must first be satisfied there are good reasons why a person did not approach us sooner. In this case, Mr W continued to pursue grants from the Council, including making a complaint, until March 2022. I am therefore satisfied it was reasonable to expect him to have complained to us sooner, and for this reason, I will not disapply the time limit here.
23. This means the only part of this complaint I will investigate is that which concerns the restart grant, because this is the only part where Mr W complained to us within 12mths of the Council’s decision.
24. In his complaint to the Ombudsman, Mr W says he wishes to appeal the Council’s decision, and that he considers it did not put adequate weight on the evidence he provided.
25. But the Ombudsman’s role is to review how councils have made their decisions. We may be able to criticise a council if, for example, it has not followed an appropriate procedure, not considered relevant information, or not properly explained a decision. We call this ‘administrative fault’ and, where we find it, we can ask councils to take steps to address the impact of the fault.
26. What we do not do, however, is provide complainants with a right of appeal against a council decision. We cannot overturn council decisions or direct them to act against their own professional judgement, and if we do not find fault, we cannot criticise a council decision, no matter how strongly a complainant feels it is wrong. We do not uphold complaints simply because someone disagrees with what a council has done.
27. In this case, I understand Mr W feels his business was eligible for the restart grant, and that the Council is at fault for not approving his application.
28. However, the Council has explained it was not satisfied the information Mr W had provided showed the business was trading, which is a qualifying criterion for the scheme. It explained to Mr W a number of times what it needed him to submit, and closed his application only after an extended period of time when it did not receive this.
29. For this reason, I cannot see any reason to criticise the Council here. It followed an appropriate procedure in making its decision, explaining clearly to Mr W what information it needed him to submit to prove he was trading, and gave him several opportunities to do so before making its decision. This is precisely what we would expect to see.
30. As there is no evidence of fault here, there is nothing further the Ombudsman can add.

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Final decision

31. I have completed my investigation with a finding of no fault.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman