Summary: Mr X complains about how the Council’s Monitoring Officer dealt with his complaint about a housing officer. The Ombudsman has found no fault.

The complaint

1. Mr X complained about the Council’s Monitoring Officer’s failure to investigate his complaint about a social housing matter causing him considerable inconvenience and distress.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We investigate complaints of injustice caused by ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. I have used the word ‘fault’ to refer to these. We cannot question whether a council’s decision is right or wrong simply because the complainant disagrees with it. We must consider whether there was fault in the way the decision was reached. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended)
3. The Courts have said that we cannot investigate a complaint about any action by a council, concerning a matter which is itself out of our jurisdiction. (R (on the application of M) v Commissioner for Local Administration [2006] EHWCC 2847 (Admin))
4. We cannot investigate complaints about the provision or management of social housing by a council acting as a registered social housing provider. (Local Government Act 1974, paragraph 5A schedule 5, as amended)
5. If we are satisfied with a council’s actions or proposed actions, we can complete our investigation and issue a decision statement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 30(1B) and 34H(i), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

6. As part of my investigation I have:

• considered the complaint and documents provided by Mr X;
• made enquiries of the Council and considered its response; and
• sent a draft version of this decision to both parties and invited comments on it.

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What I found

Relevant law and policy

The Monitoring Officer

7. Under section 5 of the Local Government and Housing Act 1989 (as amended), the Council has a duty to appoint a Monitoring Officer.
8. The Monitoring Officer has a number of statutory duties and responsibilities relating to the Council’s Constitution and the arrangements for effective governance. These duties include maintaining the Constitution, ensuring that no decision or omission of the Council is likely to give rise to illegality or maladministration and promoting high standards of conduct.

The Council’s complaints policy

9. This says that complaints about staff conduct are dealt with under the code of conduct for employees or through the staff disciplinary procedure. They will not normally be dealt with under the Council’s complaints procedure.
10. The Policy also states the complainant will not normally be kept informed of the progress of an investigation or be advised of the outcome of any disciplinary hearing.

What happened

11. Mr X is a council tenant. In May 2018, Mr X attended a tenant’s forum (“the Forum”), a group set up to address neighbourhood issues. This was attended by a Council housing officer, Ms J.
12. Mr X was unhappy about Ms J’s conduct at the meeting. In particular, Mr X says Ms J:

• failed to properly prepare for the meeting and deal with matters raised in correspondence previously by Mr X,
• was not impartial due to her association with one of the other tenants,
• spoke aggressively to Mr X.

13. He also complained about the Council having recorded the meeting.
14. He complained in writing to Ms J’s manager, Ms Y.
15. Ms Y replied saying because the complaint was about Ms J, it would be handled internally as a “human resources matter”. She also told Mr X that because this was confidential, she would not be writing again to Mr X about his complaint. Mr X replied saying that her response must be on the Council’s official letterhead and a detailed reply would follow.
16. The letter from Mr X that followed stated Ms J’s conduct at the meeting constituted harassment and “unless he received an unreserved apology, with a full report of alleged investigation and damages by way of compensation by 4pm on 27 June”, he would consider legal proceedings and that no further notice or warning would be given.
17. On 4 June 2018, Mr X wrote to the Council’s Monitoring Officer. The letter was headed, “Overall effectiveness - Monitoring Officer”. The letter referred to maladministration by the Council’s housing department but did not refer to any specific issue.
18. The Monitoring Officer replied saying Mr X had misunderstood his role. He said complaints about council services would be dealt with under its complaint’s procedure. Specifically, he said, “If you have a complaint about the service you are receiving from the Council or its officers you may utilise the Council’s Complaints Procedure which you have not done to date”.
19. He also explained the Council’s position in relation to his claim for harassment. He provided a legal basis for defending any such claim.
20. Mr X wrote to the Monitoring Officer many more times. Mr X says he kept him informed “well over 67 times”. The Monitoring Officer did not reply to any other correspondence from Mr X. Disappointed and frustrated by this lack of response, Mr X brought his complaint to the Ombudsman.
21. In response to Ombudsman enquiries, the Council made the following points:

• The response to Mr X’s original complaint by Ms Y was “rather perfunctory”.
• Mr X imposed significant constraints on the form of any reply to him.
• Mr X complained about a number of matters, all with different references.
• The initial complaint letter to the Monitoring Officer was broadly titled and contained no detail about the complaint within the body of the letter.
• Mr X’s original complaint about Ms J was subsequently reformatted to include a broader complaint of harassment and a threat of legal action.
• Mr X misunderstood the role of the Monitoring Officer.
• The Council was not obliged to escalate his complaint to stage two of the complaint’s procedure because of his threat of legal proceedings.
• The Council would now escalate the complaint to stage 2 if the Ombudsman considered it appropriate.

Analysis

22. Mr X has raised issues with the Council’s complaint handling, particularly that of the Council’s Monitoring Officer. The Ombudsman will not usually investigate a council’s complaint handling if not investigating the underlying matter.
23. But during the course of his complaint to the Ombudsman, Mr X has submitted a significant amount of evidence in support of his claims that the Council has acted unlawfully in a number of ways, not just about its complaint handling. This evidence is mainly around the Councils’ management of anti-social behaviours in his neighborhood and his own tenancy. While these matters are outside the jurisdiction of the Ombudsman, I have exercised discretion to investigate the complaint handling because:

• Mr X expressed serious concerns about the role of the Council’s Monitoring Officer that could have a wider public interest.
• Mr X’s complaint refers to the Monitoring Officer’s failure to respond to a significant number of letters.

24. Following his initial response from Ms Y, Mr X sought advice from the Department for Communities and Local Government about how best to move forward with his complaint. The response, which has been shared with both the Council and the Ombudsman said, “If you have concerns that the local authority has not followed its own policy and procedures for handling complaints, you may wish to bring this to the attention of the local authority Monitoring Officer. It is the role of the Monitoring Officer to ensure the local authority follows statutory legislation and their own stated policy at all times”.
25. Mr X understandably followed this advice and brought the matter to the attention of the Council’s Monitoring Officer. But this did not mean the Monitoring Officer was obliged to then investigate, as I assume, Mr X was expecting to happen.
26. The Monitoring Officer correctly decided not to investigate his complaint. But the letter to Mr X could have been clearer about what Mr X could do next if he remained dissatisfied. His reference to use of the complaints policy was, in my view, unhelpful and ambiguous.
27. I have also considered the content of the first response to Mr X which the Monitoring Officer described as “perfunctory”. I agree with this description. But it explained the Council’s position and informed Mr X he would not be contacted again. The decision to treat his complaint as an internal personnel matter was one that the Council was entitled to make and was in line with its complaints procedure set out above.
28. In the absence of fault, the Ombudsman cannot question the merits of the decision the Council has made or offer any opinion on whether or not we agree with the judgment of the Councils’ officers. Instead, we focus on the process by which the decision was made. The Council followed its own policy in relation to the complaint about Ms J so there is no fault here.
29. Mr X carried on writing letters to the Monitoring Officer, none of which he replied to. These letters were unspecific about what he was complaining about. Instead he referred to matters such as:

• “Your department does not check the progress in a systematic or thorough way.
• Your department does not routinely evaluate the progress of different departments within the Council.
• Your department does not hold leaders to account sufficiently well.
• That there is paucity of challenge related to the performance of different departments within the Council.”

30. Normally, where a senior officer repeatedly ignores letters that attempt to complain about significant matters this would be indicative of fault.
31. But in this case, I do not find fault. I accept the explanation that, because of Mr X’s threat of legal action and requests for damages that the Council, having stated its position, was not obliged to respond further. It has also explained that his original complaint would not be dealt with under the corporate complaint’s procedure. Mr X did not accept this rationale. But just because he did not agree with the decision, does not mean there was maladministration by the Council.
32. In my view, it would have been helpful for both parties for the Council to have told Mr X again that it would not be corresponding with him any further. But again, this in itself does not mean there was fault. Going forwards, it may be sensible for the Council to review the way it deals with the many complaints from Mr X to better manage its contact with him and so his expectations.
33. In response to my enquiries the Council said it was prepared to reconsider Mr X’s original complaint of 18 May 2018 under its corporate complaint’s procedure if the Ombudsman felt this was worthwhile. As the matters complained about happened over a year ago, and the Council has already dealt with the matter within its own internal management procedures, I can see no benefit from reopening the complaint at this late stage.

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Final decision

34. The Ombudsman has found no fault in the way the Council dealt with his complaint about a housing officer and the actions of the Monitoring Officer.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman