Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s engagement with a community group of which Mr X is a member. This is because it is too late to consider past events now and because we are unlikely to find evidence of fault with the Council’s current position sufficient to warrant an investigation.

The complaint

1. The complainant, who I refer to as Mr X, complains about the Council’s dealings with him in connection with a local community group of which he is a member and about its failure to respond to his more recent complaint about this.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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)
3. 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 may decide not to start an investigation if the tests set out in our Assessment Code are not met. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

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

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My assessment

6. Mr X complained to the Council about its dealings with him and the community group of which he is a member.
7. The Council apologised for its delay in responding to him and explained this was due to pressure of work and not through a decision not to respond to him. However, it explained that because of past difficulties in its dealings with Mr X, dating back to 2018, it would not be re-engaging in the same way again. It told Mr X that it was willing to consider any ideas or proposals Mr X might have if a productive way forward could be found although it confirmed that currently it had not been able to identify any new way of working that would avoid the problems of the past.
8. We will not investigate matters dating back to 2018. The restriction highlighted at paragraph 2 applies to them as we would reasonably have expected Mr X to have complained to us sooner.
9. Mr X may well be disappointed with the Council’s current position on how it will deal with him, but it is for the Council to decide what position to take and we cannot review the merits of it.
10. The Council did delay in responding to Mr X’s complaint but this is not a matter we will investigate when we are not investigating the substantive issue.

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Final decision

11. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because it is too late to consider past events now and because we are unlikely to find evidence of fault with the Council’s current position sufficient to warrant an investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman