North Somerset Council (24 011 654)
Category : Other Categories > Commercial and contracts
Decision : Closed after initial enquiries
Decision date : 05 Dec 2024
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about invoices raised by the Council to collect a business levy. If Mr X disputes his liability for the charges, it is reasonable for him to take the matter to court.
The complaint
- Mr X complains invoices issued by the Council to collect a business levy are unlawful due to failures in its decision-making processes. He wants the Council to cancel the invoices.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
- 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 the complainant.
- I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
- We have already considered a complaint from Mr X about the ballot decision to approve the levy and so we cannot investigate this again.
- If Mr X disputes his liability for the charges, it is reasonable for him to take the matter to court. Only a court can decide if Mr X is liable for the charges, this is not something we could determine.
- Mr X also complains about poor complaint handling. We will not investigate this as it is not a good use of our resources to investigate complaints handling where we are not investigating the substantive matter.
Final decision
- We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because it is reasonable for him to take the matter to court.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman