Summary: The Ombudsman will not investigate this complaint about the behaviour of a Council officer. This is because an investigation is unlikely to enable us to establish whether there was fault.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I refer to as Miss B, says a council officer was rude to her when she visited the Council offices following a missed, assisted refuse collection.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word ‘fault’ to refer to these. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint. We refer to this as ‘injustice’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We may decide not to start or continue with an investigation if we believe:

• it is unlikely we could add to any previous investigation by the Council, or
• it is unlikely further investigation will lead to a different outcome, or

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

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How I considered this complaint

3. I have considered:
• Miss B’s complaint to the Ombudsman;
• The earlier complaint correspondence between Miss B and the Council.
4. I also gave Miss B the opportunity to comment on a draft version of this statement.

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What I found

Summary of what happened

5. Miss B went to the Council offices after her assisted refused collection was missed. Miss B spoke to Officer A, and says she was told the officer would deal with the matter and would call her back with an update around 10am the next day.
6. Officer A says she did not promise to call Miss B at 10am. Rather, she says she told Miss B that she would call sometime after 10am.
7. The next day, as Miss B had not received the call she was expecting, she returned to the Council offices at 11am. Miss B says another officer, Officer B, took her into a separate room, where she was told to sit down, and was treated like a child. Miss B says Officer B accused her of a lying about the expected phone call, and made ageist comments.
8. The Council says Miss B came into the offices, and started shouting at one of the ‘meet and greet’ staff and invaded her personal space. It says Officer B, a duty manager, came to see what was happening, and took Miss B to a separate room because her behaviour was disruptive and upsetting for other members of staff and the public. Officer B says she asked Miss B to calm down, but Miss B continued to shout at her whilst she was trying to explain what was happening with Officer A’s enquiries into the missed collection. Officer B denies calling Miss B a liar or making ageist comments, and confirms she asked Miss B to leave as she was not listening to what she was being told.

Assessment

9. I appreciate Miss B was very upset by what happened at the Council offices.
10. But Miss B clearly has a very different recollection of what was said and what happened, compared to the accounts provided by Officer A and Officer B.
11. In my view, an investigation by the Ombudsman is unlikely to uncover any new information that would enable us to conclude whose version of events is correct, and therefore whether there has been any fault by the Council.
12. With reference to paragraph 2 above, I do not consider the Ombudsman should pursue Miss B’s complaint further.

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Final decision

13. The Ombudsman will not investigate Miss B’s complaint. This is because an investigation is unlikely to enable us to establish whether the Council acted with fault.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman