Examples: Was the complaint made within 12 months?

Investigating the whole complaint

• The complainant lost an educational admissions appeal last year and accepted the result. But this year a friend’s child was admitted on appeal in exactly similar circumstances – IN because the complainant only just found out about the alleged maladministration.
• The complainant contacted his ward councillor about noise from his neighbours four years ago. The councillor referred the complaint to officers, who took no action and for a long time the complainant assumed he would simply have to put up with it. Recently he complained to the council again, officers have now been to visit him and have agreed there is a nuisance – IN, because of the complaint made to the councillor four years ago.
• A complaint was made to the council that incorrect advice given by a highways officer had caused the complainants to make a planning application which could not have succeeded, and was rejected on appeal. The council carried out a careful and thorough investigation, but it was almost four years after the original advice was given before the complaints procedure was finally concluded and the matter came to the Ombudsman, in part because of lengthy negotiations to settle the matter. IN, as the complaint had been made promptly once the planning appeal and the council’s complaints procedure had run their course.
• The complainant, who suffered depression, was not able to make his complaint about the council’s failure to deal properly with an application for a housing transfer until three years after the event – IN.

Restricting the scope of the investigation

• In the case of a long running failure of administrative procedures, it is always possible for the Ombudsman to investigate a complaint about what happened in the last 12 months before the complaint was made. A complainant alleged that over the course of ten years, the council had dealt inadequately with his complaints about noise from motor cycles which trespassed upon an area of rough ground adjacent to his home to practice ‘scrambling’. The Ombudsman restricted her investigation to the 12 months previous to the complaint being made, as the complainant was aware of her existence and there had been no good reason for the delay in bringing the complaint.
• The complainant said that she had experienced problems of antisocial behaviour by her neighbours for fifteen years and had been complaining to the council which had done nothing effective. The problems had escalated in the last two and a half years since the neighbour’s teenage son had been convicted of a drugs offence. Investigation period restricted to three years (to pick up the situation before the problems increased).

No good reason to exercise discretion

• The complainant objected to his neighbour’s planning application which was approved by the council over three years ago. The complainant says his objections were not taken into account, but he has only now complained to the Ombudsman because he did not know of the existence of such a service – OUT, unless he can show that he aired his complaint with the council at the time and was not told of the Ombudsman service.
   

Date Updated: 15/07/09