Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about renting out a room. This is mainly because the events complained of have not caused significant enough injustice for us to investigate.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains about the Council's handling of matters concerning a property of which he was landlord and about how the Council dealt with his formal complaint. He says this caused him stress, inconvenience and financial loss.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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))

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided by the complainant and copy correspondence from the Council.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. Mr X contacted the Council about the possibility of renting out a room. He complains about various elements of the Council's handling of the matter. As explained above, we do not necessarily investigate every allegation a Council is at fault. We will only investigate where we judge the alleged fault affected the person complaining significantly enough to warrant the Ombudsman devoting time and public money to pursuing the complaint.
6. I understand Mr X's dealings with the Council included him travelling to the property at least twice for appointments. The home address Mr X gave on his complaints to the Council is around 20 miles from the property he was enquiring about. Mr X also had to deal with the Council when it mistakenly said it did not have a record of previous dealings with the matter.
7. Mr X is a landlord, so he can reasonably expect to have to go to the property sometimes to deal with official matters. In that context, the effort and expense of a small number of trips on top of what Mr X might consider reasonable, and any sense of frustration from that or from dealing with the Council generally, is not a significant enough injustice for us to devote resources to investigating whether the Council was at fault.
8. Mr X also complains about the Council’s handling of his formal complaint. 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.

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Final decision

9. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint. The substantive matters complained of have not caused significant enough injustice for us to investigate. With the complaint-handling points, it would be disproportionate to investigate those in isolation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman