Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about the Council pursuing him for repayment of a COVID-19 business grant. This is because the complaint is late and the Council has passed the case to a government department which has made its own decision to take action against Mr X. We have no jurisdiction over the department and cannot say the Council must accept he is eligible for the grant. We cannot therefore achieve the outcome Mr X wants.

The complaint

1. The complainant, Mr X, complains the Council paid his company a COVID-19 business grant in April 2021 which it later decided he was not eligible for. It therefore asked Mr X to repay the grant but Mr X has refused. It has therefore passed the matter to the Department for Business, Energy & Industry Strategy (BEIS) to recover payment from Mr X.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’, which we call ‘fault’. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse effect 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 an investigation if we decide the tests set out in our Assessment Code are not met. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)
3. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
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)

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How I considered this complaint

5. I considered information provided by Mr X and the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

6. There is some dispute over when the Council first made Mr X aware of the erroneous payment but Mr X accepts he received an invoice from the Council for it on 29 March 2022 and knew the Council felt it had made an error and that he needed to repay the grant at that point. He says he spoke to the Council on several occasions about the matter until 24 May 2022 and then told it to take him to court. Mr X brought his complaint to us in October 2024.
7. Because Mr X has been aware both of the Council’s apparent error in awarding the grant to his company and of its demands for his company to repay it for more than 12 months, his complaint is late. Mr X could and should have complained to us sooner and I have therefore decided not to exercise my discretion to investigate the complaint.
8. However, even if we were to investigate we could not achieve the outcome Mr X wants. We have no jurisdiction over the BEIS so we cannot say they must stop recovery action against Mr X and we are not an appeal body and cannot say the Council must find Mr X eligible for the grants.

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Final decision

9. We will not investigate this complaint. This is because it is late and we cannot achieve the outcome Mr X wants.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman