Summary: Ms D says the Council failed to adequately redress her complaint about a leisure facility. The Council had already accepted fault and offered redress. It has now offered an additional amount of financial redress. As such, the Ombudsman has upheld the complaint and completed the investigation.

The complaint

1. Ms D complains about the Council’s conduct in relation to her use of its leisure services including lack of service provision, invoicing and bookings.

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What I have investigated

2. As I explain below most of the complaint falls outside the Ombudsman’s remit as it relates to contractual matters which can be pursued in court.
3. I am investigating Ms D’s complaint about the Council failing to offer an adequate remedy to staff conduct problems. I am also looking at whether the Council considered if it should pay Ms D for her time spent pursuing her complaint.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

4. We cannot investigate a complaint if it is about certain types of commercial transactions. (Local Government Act 1974, Schedule 5/5a, paragraph 3, as amended)
5. 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)
6. 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)
7. If we are satisfied with a council’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

8. I have spoken to Ms D and considered the information she provided. I asked the Council questions and carefully examined its response.
9. I shared my draft decision with both parties.

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What I found

What happened

10. Ms D has contracted use of a Council leisure facility for several years to train her clients.
11. In July 2018 Ms D emailed the Council about concerns regarding her contract and staff conduct. The Council subsequently met Ms D. In November it decided to formalise her complaint and deal with it at the second stage of its complaints process (stage two complaint).
12. In January 2019 the Council sent Ms D a detailed reply to her complaint setting out its investigation and findings. It found that despite Ms D raising concerns about staff conduct in 2018 the complaint had not been addressed and problems reoccurred. The Council concluded that staff had “not always demonstrated good customer care” and Managers had failed to monitor their behaviour. The Council also noted that Ms D’s July 2018 complaint should have been dealt with as a formal complaint and responded to within 15 working days: that did not happen. The Council found learning points from the complaint which included better complaint handling, closer supervision of staff and performance. The Council also considered financial redress for Ms D in respect of delay and time and trouble caused by its actions. It offered her £450.
13. Ms D remained dissatisfied with the Council and continued to correspond with it.

What should have happened

14. When a service user complains about staff conduct the Council should follow its guidance and a Manager will monitor and supervise staff members to see if there any personnel issues that need addressed. The Manager should seek to first address concerns informally if appropriate.
15. If a service user asks to lodge a formal complaint the Facility Manager should follow the Council’s corporate complaints policy. That requires a written response within 15 working days.

Was there fault by the Council

16. The Council has already accepted fault in its January 2019 complaint response to Ms D. Ms D feels the Council should detail any training it will provide to staff as a result of her case. I do not see the Council is required to do this, it has already given an undertaking to monitor staff performance and part of that will included assessing if individuals need additional training. In my view the Council has set out reasonable actions to improve its service provision.
17. I also see it offered Ms D £450 for delay and time and trouble. Ideally those are two separate matters in terms of redress. The Ombudsman usually considers redress payments ranging from £100 to £250 for time and trouble pursuing a complaint. For delay, redress can range from £100 upwards. In my view the Council has offered a reasonable remedy of £450 for delay. However, it had not remedied the time and trouble incurred by Ms D. I understand Ms D wants £6,500. That is not an amount the Ombudsman will ask for as it exceeds the level of financial redress we can consider for this type of fault, instead I consider the Council’s additional offer to me of £279.24 to be an adequate remedy. That brings the total redress to £729.24 which I understand is the amount still outstanding on Ms D’s account with the Council.

Did the fault cause an injustice

18. Ms D had to pursue her complaint because the Council failed to deal with it correctly.

Agreed action

19. The Council should use the redress it has offered of £729.24 to clear Ms D’s outstanding balance and confirm to Ms D in writing that it has implemented the learning points from the stage two complaint response. That should be completed within four weeks of this case closing.

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Final decision

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

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Parts of the complaint that I did not investigate

21. I have not investigated Ms D’s complaints about lack of service provision, invoicing and bookings. That is because those are contractual matters which are outside the Ombudsman’s remit and can be pursued in court.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman