The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about how the Council dealt with a licencing application and a report of a breach of licencing conditions. This is because there is insufficient evidence of fault causing the complainant a significant injustice, and because some matters happened too long ago.
The complaint
The complainant who I will call Miss X, complains about the Council’s decision to grant a licence to a local premises. She says the premises was originally licenced to operate as a restaurant but has now been allowed to operate as a bar. Miss X also says illegal activity has been taking place at the bar, in breach of licencing conditions.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
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, or any fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained, or any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement.
(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6)) 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)
How I considered this complaint
I considered information provided by the complainant.
I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
In 2006 the Council granted a premises a licence to operate as a late-night restaurant. In 2018, the Council approved an application to vary the conditions of the licence to allow the premises to operate as a bar. In October 2021, Miss X contacted the Council to inform it that the premises was allowing illegal activity to take place, in breach of its licence. Shortly after the bar closed temporarily.
I will not investigate how the Council managed the original licencing application or the applications to transfer and vary the licence. This is because these events happened too long ago, and I see no reason why they could not have been raised when the bar first started trading in 2018.
I will not investigate Miss X’s complaint about how the Council dealt with her reports of a breach of licence conditions. It carried out enforcement visits to the premises, reported the matter to the police and has explained that it will continue to monitor the site once it reopens. I see no evidence of fault in how it dealt with Miss X’s report.
Further to the reasons detailed above, the Council’s handling of the licencing application and alleged breaches do not cause Miss X a significant personal injustice, based on the proximity of her home to the premises and based on the breaches she reported allegedly happened inside the premises.
Final decision
We will not investigate Miss X’s complaint because there is insufficient evidence of fault causing a significant personal injustice. Some matters also happened too long ago.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman