Sefton Metropolitan Borough Council (06C16558)

Leisure and culture                     Maladministration causing injustice

7 April 2008

Sefton Metropolitan Borough Council did not deal fairly with an allotment holder who was involved in a dispute with another allotment holder.

‘Mrs B’ complained about the Council’s biased and unfair treatment of her husband, ‘Mr B’.
There had been a long running and acrimonious dispute amongst some of the allotment holders. An exchange took place between Mr B and ‘Mr X’ on the allotment site. The next day, Mr X went to the Council with a tape recording which he said demonstrated that Mr B had abused him during the exchange. Witnesses to the exchange wrote to the Council saying that Mr B had not behaved improperly. Mr B later wrote setting out his version of events.

It was clear to the Council that the witnesses’ letters described the same incident. The Council concluded that Mr B had instigated the altercation, but it decided that the incident did not warrant any action other than to write to Mr B and Mr X about the matter. The letter to Mr B said the Council was “minded to caution you to do everything in your powers to prevent another similar incident”. Mr B interpreted this as a caution.

The Council had previously written to Mr B, referring to a previous incident, saying he had been formally cautioned by the police. Mrs B had told the Council at the time that this was untrue, but a council officer had said he had been given the information by the local police.

The Ombudsman’s investigation found that:

• Council officers had believed what they had been told by other parties to the dispute on the allotment about Mr B receiving a police caution and had repeated this without checking properly;
• Council officers had acted properly in deciding not to pursue the complaint made about Mr B; 
• the Council did not explain why it concluded that he was the person recorded on the tape and stated, without evidence or enquiry, that the other party did not appear to instigate the altercation;
• and the Council had written in similar terms to both Mr B and Mr X but had not told Mr B this.

The Ombudsman found maladministration causing injustice and recommended that the Council should:

• formally apologise to Mr B for the way it handled Mr X’s complaint against him and for failing to explain why it believed that he was one of the parties to the altercation on the tape recording;
• apologise to Mr B and formally retract its suggestion that he has been subject to formal police action;
• have clear and accessible policies for dealing with complaints about the behaviour of residents and service users and it should ensure that all its officers are properly trained in how to investigate those complaints fairly; and
• pay Mr and Mrs B £1,000 for the time, trouble and costs of bringing their complaint to the Ombudsman and as compensation for the anguish and distress these allegations caused.

Date Updated: 16/01/09