Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about the Council emailing him a homelessness application in his name that he had not made. This is because the Information Commission is better placed to consider.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains about the Council’s handling of his complaint about a homelessness application in his name that he never made.
2. Mr X is dissatisfied that the Council has not adequately explained how the application was created, has provided contradictory explanations, and has refused to provide investigation findings.

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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 another body better placed to consider this complaint. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

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How I considered this complaint

4. I considered information provided by the complainant.
5. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

6. The Council has responded to Mr X. It says ‘an isolated system error’ resulted in a homelessness decision being emailed to Mr X. The Council says it has corrected or deleted inaccurate information, confirmed no adverse housing decision remains on Mr X’s record, and found no evidence that Mr X’s personal data was disclosed to any unauthorised third party. The Council apologises for the distress caused and says it has complied with the complainant's subject access requests.
7. We will not investigate. This is because the core complaint is about the creation, retention, accuracy, correction, disclosure and access to personal information. I note the Council says it responded to Mr X’s subject access requests and requests for further information. These are all matters which fall squarely within the remit of the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), the specialist regulator. The ICO is better placed to consider concerns about data protection, information rights, subject access requests and the handling of personal data.
8. As the core issues are matters for the ICO, we would not investigate the associated complaint handling separately. We are unlikely to find sufficient injustice from the complaint handling on its own when the underlying data protection and information rights issues are for a different body.

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Final decision

9. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because another body is better placed to consider.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman