Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council not giving Mr X’s business COVID-19-related business rates relief in 2022. The complaint is late without good reason to investigate it now.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains the Council did not give business rates relief from the Covid Additional Relief Fund (CARF) to his business. He states he applied on time, his business was eligible, yet the Council did not act on his application or contact him when it awarded relief to other businesses. Mr X says his business lost out on £17,000 of rates relief, which worsened its financial difficulties.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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)

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How I considered this complaint

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

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My assessment

5. The government set up the CARF to give councils money for councils to give business rates relief for the 2021/22 financial year. Each council decided for itself which businesses would get rates relief.
6. In April 2022 Mr X applied for CARF rates relief by email and received a response from the Council saying it had sent the matter to the relevant team, which would respond in due course. Mr X did not then receive any CARF rates relief, nor did he hear further from the Council.
7. I appreciate Mr X might not have expected an immediate substantive response from the Council. He might reasonably have expected the Council to take a couple of months to deal with applications. However, Mr X did not complain to us until May 2024. That was two years after his application and well over 12 months after he would have known he had not received the rates relief. Therefore the restriction in paragraph 2 applies to this complaint.
8. I appreciate Mr X’s business was in difficult circumstances, which would have demanded his attention. Nevertheless, Mr X was running a business so it is reasonable to expect he would pursue this important matter promptly with the Council if necessary and would promptly find out how to escalate matters, including to the Ombudsman. Mr X had contact with the Council about this from October to December 2023, then in February 2024, after which he went through the Council’s complaint procedure. However, that does not persuade me Mr X could not have complained to us much sooner. Mr X could reasonably have pursued the matter consistently, including bringing it to us, well before now. I am not persuaded there is good enough reason to investigate this complaint now, so long after the relevant events.
9. In December 2023, in response to correspondence from Mr X, the Council recognised it had received Mr X’s application and apologised for not dealing with it at the relevant time. That does not change my view of the complaint. Mr X knew those points well before the Council’s email in December 2023. He knew in April 2022 the Council had acknowledged his application and he knew he had heard nothing more.
10. Mr X is also dissatisfied with the Council’s handling of his formal complaint. It is not a good use of public resources to investigate complaints about complaint procedures, if we are unable to deal with the substantive issue.

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Final decision

11. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because it is late without good reason to investigate it now. It would be disproportionate to investigate the Council’s complaint-handling by itself.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman