Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about the Council’s handling of his trading standards complaint. This is because an investigation is unlikely to find evidence of fault by the Council.

The complaint

3. The complainant, who I refer to as Mr X, complains about the Council’s handling of his trading standards complaint concerning an advertisement which wrongly described his rent as including all bills. Mr X wants the Council to order the letting agents to repay money to him and to take legal action against them.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

4. The Ombudsman investigates complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’, which we call ‘fault’. We cannot question whether a council’s decision is right or wrong simply because the complainant disagrees with it. We must consider whether there was fault in the way the decision was reached. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended)
5. 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 may decide not to continue with 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
• we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation, or
• further investigation would not lead to a different outcome, or
• we cannot achieve the outcome someone wants. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6))

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How I considered this complaint

6. I considered information provided by Mr X and the Council.
7. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

8. Mr X answered a letting agent’s advertisement to rent a room where the rent was said to include all bills. As his electricity bills were not included, Mr X complained to the Council about this.
9. The Council told Mr X that due to limited resources it could not investigate all consumer enquiries and complaints it received about breaches of the law relating to products and services. However, it advised Mr X that it was part of a system of information referrals to Trading Standards where businesses have their head offices. Having considered Mr X’s case, the Council decided the most appropriate action would be for a referral to West Berkshire Trading Standards Service where the business Mr X had complained about had their central decision-making office. This service would then decide what action to take. It also advised Mr X what to do if he wanted to pursue a civil case against the agents.
10. I understand Mr X wants the Council to take enforcement action against the agents for misleading him but councils do not have to prosecute a trader even when it is clear that a criminal offence has been committed. Authorities can choose what to do and here the Council considered matters and referred the case to a more appropriate council. This not evidence of fault by the Council. We do not act as an appeal body and it is not open to us to review the merits of this decision.
11. I note Mr X has also complained about the actions of a councillor who he emailed and wrote to in connection with this matter but who did not reply to him until some time later. However, we will only investigate a complaint about the Council’s handling of a complaint made against a councillor if there is sufficient injustice to warrant our involvement or we consider it in the public interest to do so and neither criterion is satisfied here.

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Final decision

12. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because an investigation is unlikely to find evidence of fault by the Council.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman