Gateshead Metropolitan Borough Council (26 012 176)
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint that the Council delayed making a compensation payment to X. This is because the issue has not caused X a significant enough injustice to warrant our involvement.
The complaint
- X complains that the Council delayed paying compensation for how it handled X’s right to buy application and about how the Council dealt with their complaint about this matter.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
- 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 any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))
How I considered this complaint
- I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
- I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
- The Council upheld a complaint from X and agreed to make a payment to remedy the injustice caused. X raised a new complaint after it took three months for the Council to make the payment.
- I will not investigate X’s complaint. Whilst I acknowledge that the delay in receiving the Council’s payment would have caused a certain level of frustration, I do not consider that this amounts to a significant enough injustice to warrant our further involvement.
- It is not a good use of public resources to investigate complaints about complaint procedures if we are unable to deal with the substantive issue.
Final decision
- We will not investigate X’s complaint because any injustice is not significant enough to warrant our further involvement.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman