The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about contractual matters. This is because the courts are better placed to consider the complaint.
The complaint
Mrs Y complains, on behalf of her company who has a contract with the Council to provide services, that the Council is going back on contractual terms and is removing the company from its projects to then replace the company with other providers, outside the contract terms.
Mrs Y says this is reducing her company’s income and she has therefore had to reduce jobs, causing upset and uncertainty.
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 another body better placed to consider this complaint. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6))
How I considered this complaint
I considered information Mrs Y provided and the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
Mrs Y, a company director, complained to the Council in October 2021 about the repeated loss of projects to work on. Mrs Y suggested that this was not in keeping with procurement requirements, thus disadvantaging her company against contractual terms agreed between her company and the Council.
The Council responded denying any such issues, explaining that it used other contracted suppliers correctly and had not gone against the contract it had with Mrs Y’s company. Mrs Y then approached us at the end of May 2022.
Analysis Mrs Y’s complaint relates to the procurement requirements the Council has used to allocate work to different company’s providing services to it. This includes an alleged breach of the agreement between Mrs Y’s company and the Council for Mrs Y’s company to provide staff for services at specific events and more generally.
The Ombudsman is not able to decide whether the Council has or has not breached terms of contracts and cannot award damages for losses because of any breaches. These are legal claims which may only be determined the courts or in some cases, insurers.
As the courts can make this type of decision, where we cannot, this complaint is better dealt with by the courts. Consequently, we will not investigate this complaint.
Final decision
We will not investigate Mrs Y’s complaint because the courts are better placed to consider the complaint.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman