Summary: We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint about the Council’s responses to her reports of an unauthorised street trader, not giving out officers’ mobile numbers, its complaint responses, and a Freedom of Information (FOI) issue. There is insufficient significant personal injustice to Ms X from the trader issue to warrant an investigation. There is not enough evidence of fault in the way the Council receives information from the public, nor significant injustice to Ms X, to justify investigating that issue. We do not investigate council complaint-handling where we are not investigating the core issue giving rise to the complaint. We cannot investigate Ms X’s FOI matter because the Council has not had opportunity to consider it and reply. Should Ms X be dissatisfied with the Council’s response, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) is best placed to consider it.

The complaint

1. Ms X complains the Council has:
1. failed to take action on her reports of an unauthorised street trader;
2. not given her an officer’s mobile telephone number so she can report when the trader is there;
3. not properly investigated her complaint;
4. has not responded to her Freedom of Information (FOI) request.
2. Ms X says the matters have caused her stress. She wants the Council to apologise to her, review its processes and procedures, provide officers’ mobile telephone numbers, and respond to complaints received.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. 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:

• there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating; or
• any fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained; or
• any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement; or
• there is another body better placed to consider this complaint.

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

4. The Information Commissioner's Office considers complaints about freedom of information. Its decision notices may be appealed to the First Tier Tribunal (Information Rights). So where we receive complaints about freedom of information, we normally consider it reasonable to expect the person to refer the matter to the Information Commissioner.

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How I considered this complaint

5. I considered information from Ms X and the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

6. Ms X reported a food van trading on land in the Council’s area. The Council says it is investigating whether it has powers to act because there is uncertainty about the ownership of the land where the van is trading.
7. Even if there has been fault in the way the Council has dealt with this issue, we will not investigate. We do not investigate every incidence or potential incidence of council fault. To pursue a matter, we also need to decide the fault has directly caused a sufficiently significant personal injustice to the complainant. We recognise Ms X may be annoyed and frustrated by the actions of the trader and the Council’s responses to her reports. But that is not such a significant injustice to her to warrant us investigating. We also realise Ms X has concerns about the impact of the trader on other authorised businesses, but that is not a personal injustice to her. Therefore, we will not investigate this core complaint issue.
8. Ms X considers the Council should give the public access to officers’ works mobile numbers so people can report concerns to them while they are out of the office. We recognise Ms X wishes to see this happen. But it is for councils to decide how they use and target their limited staff and other resources to obtain reports to inform their investigations. It is not fault for the Council to receive reports of possible licence breaches online, by email, from calls to office‑based staff or by post, while focusing its resources on incidents which have greater potential for public impacts. The Council’s current contact options do not prevent Ms X or others from reporting concerns, so there is also insufficient personal injustice to Ms X from this issue to justify us investigating.
9. Ms X complains about the Council’s handling of her complaint. We do not investigate councils’ complaint-handling in isolation where we are not investigating the core issues giving rise to the complaint. It is not a good use of our resources to do so. That limitation applies here so we will not investigate this part of the complaint.
10. After she made her complaint to us, Ms X raised a further concern about her FOI request to the Council, which she says has not been answered. This is a new matter and did not form part of her complaint put before the Council. This means we cannot investigate this issue, because the Council has not had the appropriate opportunity to consider it and respond. If Ms X does wish to pursue this issue, she would first need to make a complaint to the Council about it. If she is dissatisfied with the Council’s final response, it would be reasonable for her to refer it to the ICO, not to us. This is because the ICO is the body created by national government to consider concerns about the disclosure and handling of data by authorities, including Councils, so it is better placed to consider this FOI matter.

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Final decision

11. We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint because:
• there is insufficient significant personal injustice to Ms X from the core matter of the street trader and the Council’s responses to this issue to warrant an investigation; and
• there is not enough evidence of fault in the way the Council receives information from the public, nor sufficient significant injustice to Ms X, to justify investigating; and
• we do not investigate council complaint-handling where we are not investigating the core issues giving rise to the complaint; and
• we cannot investigate the FOI issue, and it would be reasonable for her to pursue the matter with the ICO as the body better placed to investigate this matter.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman