The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about leisure facilities membership fees. It is reasonable to expect Mr X to take the matter to court.
The complaint
Mr X complains the leisure facilities provider (‘the Trust’), which delivers services on behalf of the Council, wrongly charged him fees and would not allow him to cancel his membership. Mr X says this caused him stress and impacted him financially.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
We investigate complaints about councils and certain other bodies. Where an individual, organisation or private company is providing services on behalf of a council, we can investigate complaints about the actions of these providers. (Local Government Act 1974, section 25(7), as amended.)
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 Mr X, and the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
Mr X says the Trust did not cancel his leisure facilities membership when he requested this, and then wrongly charged him additional fees including for late payment.
The Trust says it was initially unable to cancel Mr X’s membership as his account was in arrears, and that it would not consider Mr X’s complaint as it related to a contractual matter outside of scope of its complaints procedures. It also says it has acted in line with its contract with Mr X by not cancelling his membership sooner.
This is fundamentally a dispute about whether the contract between Mr X and the Trust is fair and has been followed. The courts are better placed than the Ombudsman to decide such contractual disputes. The court process for claiming a relatively small amount of money is not necessarily expensive.
Final decision
We will not investigate this complaint, because it is reasonable to expect Mr X to take the matter to court.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman