Summary: We cannot investigate Ms X’s complaint about the accommodation the Council has placed her in. The law does not allow us to investigate matters that are subject to court proceedings.

The complaint

1. Ms X complains the Council placed her in unsuitable accommodation and delayed moving her to more suitable accommodation. She says the Council have mishandled her complaint, communicated poorly with her and failed to respond to her SAR request.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes limits on what we can investigate.
3. We cannot investigate a complaint if someone has appealed to a tribunal or a government minister or started court action about the matter. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(6), as amended)
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.
5. We normally expect someone to refer the matter to the Information Commissioner if they have a complaint about data protection. However, we may decide to investigate if we think there are good reasons. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

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

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My assessment

8. Ms X has started judicial review about the matters she is complaining about. The law prevents us from investigating complaints where someone has started court action about the same matters. We cannot investigate this complaint.
9. Ms X also complains of poor communication and complaint handling. We will not look into this part of Ms X’s complaint because it is not a good use of public resources to investigate complaints about complaint handling when we are not looking at the substantive issues.
10. Ms X also complains the Council have failed to respond to her information request. The Information Commissioner’s Office is the organisation best placed to consider complaints about how organisations handle people’s data. If Ms X would like to complain about the Council’s response to her information request, it would be reasonable for her to raise this with the Information Commissioner’s Office.

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Final decision

11. We cannot investigate Ms X’s complaint about the accommodation the Council has placed her in. The law does not allow us to investigate matters that are subject to court proceedings.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman