Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the way the Council dealt with a Right to Buy application. This complaint is late and there are no good reasons to accept it now.

The complaint

1. Mr B says the Council forced him to accept a caution for a mistake he made when he was completing a right to buy application form in 2016.
2. Mr B also says the Council took two years to respond to correspondence he sent to complain about the caution.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. We cannot investigate late complaints unless we decide there are good reasons. Late complaints are when someone takes more than 12 months to complain to us about something a council has done. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26B, as amended)
4. 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 may decide not to continue with an investigation if we decide any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A (6))
5.  

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How I considered this complaint

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

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My assessment

8. Mr B says he made a mistake when completing the right to buy form because he was grieving following his sister’s death.
9. The Council says Mr B did not mention his circumstances and state of mind during the investigation in 2016. However, it said the caution is not on any police databases, so it does not affect Mr B any other way.
10. The Council apologised for the late responses to the correspondence Mr B sent in February and October 2019 and in February 2020.
11. Mr B’s complaint is late as it is about what happened in 2016. There is no good reason to exercise our discretion to investigate because it is reasonable to expect Mr B to have complained to us much sooner. Further, the Council confirmed the caution will not stop Mr B from making another Right to Buy application. The Council has not therefore caused him significant personal injustice that would warrant us investigating.
12. It is not a good use of public resources to investigate how the Council handled a complaint if we are not investigating the substantive issue, so we shall not do so in this case.

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Final decision

13. We will not investigate Mr B’s complaint because it is late and there are no good reasons to exercise our discretion to accept it now.

Investigator’s decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman