Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about how the Council publicised a tendering opportunity. This is because there is no evidence of fault by the Council or the company acting on its behalf.

The complaint

1. Mr X says the Council failed to notify him of an opportunity to tender to provide services. Mr X says he has been registered with the company which procures contracts on behalf of the Council for a number of years and has been notified of tendering opportunities in the past and was told he would be updated in future.
2. Mr X says he is usually successful in tendering for services and so has lost out on 4 years of earnings.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. The Ombudsman investigates complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’, which we call ‘fault’. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint, which we call ‘injustice’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We do not start or may decide not to continue with an investigation if we decide there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6))

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How I considered this complaint

4. I considered information provided by the complainant.
5. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

6. We consider the company which procures contracts for the Council is acting on its behalf and so we have registered the complaint against the Council.
7. The company publicised the tendering opportunity concerned over four separate platforms. Mr X says he has registered for notifications of tendering opportunities but was not notified of this one. The company says this was because Mr X had not registered for updates for the category the tender was publicised under.
8. The company was in correspondence with Mr X regarding a possible tendering opportunity. However this was postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The company said it would keep Mr X updated.
9. There is no evidence of fault in how the company publicised the tendering opportunity on behalf of the Council and so we will not investigate this complaint. The company publicised the opportunity across four separate platforms. Whilst I appreciate that Mr X has been sent automatic notifications of opportunities in the past this does not place any additional duties on the company or the Council to ensure notifications are sent. Anyone interested in tendering for services is responsible for checking for opportunities on a regular basis and ensuring their notification settings are up to date and cover the range of activities they might wish to tender for.
10. I note the company advised him it would keep him updated. However I cannot see this constitutes any form of promise to update him via e-mail and as set out in paragraph 9, Mr X was ultimately responsible for regularly checking for tendering opportunities.

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Final decision

11. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because there is no evidence of fault by the Council.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman