Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about how the Council dealt with Miss X’s information because there is another organisation who are better to look at that. And we will not investigate Miss X’s complaint about how the Council contacts her. The Council has made changes to its first decision about this and these changes are appropriate. We would not add anything to them.

The complaint

1. Miss X said the Council mishandled and shared her sensitive information when it should not have done so. She also said the Council said she had to write to it rather than meeting her or speaking to her on the telephone. She said this has caused her distress.

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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 impact 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 or continue an investigation if we decide:

• we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation, or
• there is another body better placed to consider this complaint, or

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided by the complainant.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. Miss X was not happy because the Council shared sensitive information about her and her family. Miss X wants the Council to change some of its records.
6. The Information Commissioner’s Office is an organisation who can investigate complaints about how the Council handled a person’s sensitive information. Because they were set up for this reason, we won’t investigate and Miss X can complain to them if she wants to.
7. Miss X was also not happy because the Council said it would not speak to her in person or telephone her when it was dealing with her. Miss X said she had a disability and was unhappy the Council did not think about that when it decided to introduce this.
8. The Council looked at what Miss X said and made changes to how it would pass her information. That included giving Miss X an independent advocate and calling her before passing messages. This is what we would expect to see happen and so we do not need to investigate, because there is nothing we would do differently.

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Final decision

9. We will not investigate Miss X’s complaint because there is a better body to look at how it dealt with her information and the Council did what we expect it to do about how it contacts her.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman