Summary: We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint about the Council’s response to her 2018 complaint. The complaint lies outside our jurisdiction because it is late and there are no good grounds to exercise discretion to consider it now.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I shall call Ms X, complains about the Council’s response to a complaint she made in 2018 about its sharing of her personal information.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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 do not start an investigation if we decide the tests set out in our Assessment Code are not met. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)
3. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
4. 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)

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How I considered this complaint

5. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
6. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

7. Ms X complains about the Council’s 2018 response to her complaint about its sharing of her personal information. Ms X says the Council’s response did not properly acknowledge or rectify the issues raised and the impact it had on her life and her health. She also complains the Council did not take account of her vulnerability
8. The Council considered and decided Ms X’s complaint in 2018. The complaint was closed at stage 2 of the Council’s complaints procedure when Ms X confirmed the financial remedy the Council provided resolved her complaint. She did not escalate her complaint to stage 3 of the Council’s complaints procedure.
9. Ms X recently asked the Council to reconsider her complaint. The Council told Ms X it would not consider the matter further now due to the passage of time and that it will only investigate matters that have happened within the last 12 months.

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Final decision

10. We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint. It lies outside our jurisdiction because it is late. The law says a complaint should be made to us within 12 months of the person affected first becoming aware of the matter. Ms X was clearly aware of this matter in 2018 and could have been reasonably expected to have complained to us much sooner. I see no good grounds to exercise discretion to consider this very late complaint now, six years on from when Ms X first complained about the matter.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman