Summary: The Ombudsman will not investigate this complaint about the District Council’s consideration of the complainant’s code of conduct complaint against the Chairman and Clerk of a Parish. This is because the Ombudsman cannot consider complaints about the actions of a Parish Council, the alleged administrative fault by the District Council is unlikely to have affected its decision on the code of conduct complaint, and our continued involvement is unlikely to achieve any worthwhile outcome.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I refer to as Mr B, complains about the actions of the Chairman and the Clerk of a Parish Council, in relation to his charity’s proposal to fund the design and build of a community/sports hall.
2. In particular, Mr B says that at a Parish Council meeting where his proposal was due to be discussed, the Chairman (on advice from the Clerk) wrongly informed three councillors they had a conflict of interest and could not participate. He says this resulted in the Parish Council being deprived of the views of those councillors who had detailed knowledge of the subject matter, and there was no debate. Mr B says the Chairman’s advice to the councillors has subsequently been acknowledged to be wrong.
3. Mr B is also unhappy the original minutes of the meeting recorded that the three councillors had themselves declared the conflict of interest, when they had in fact been told they should not participate by the Chairman. The minutes were also subsequently acknowledged to be incorrect, and were amended.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

4. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
5. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word ‘fault’ to refer to these. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We may decide not to start or continue with an investigation if we believe:
• it is unlikely we would find fault, or
• the fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained, or
• the injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement, or
• it is unlikely we could add to any previous investigation by the Council, or
• it is unlikely further investigation by the Ombudsman will lead to a different outcome.

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)

6. And 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)
7. So, the Ombudsman does not offer a right of appeal against a District/Borough council’s decision on complaints that a Parish councillor has breached the code of conduct. But we can consider if there was fault in the way the District/Borough council considered a code of conduct complaint against a Parish councillor.
8. However, we cannot investigate the actions of bodies such as Parish Councils. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 25 and 34A, as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

9. I have considered:
• Mr B’s complaint to the Ombudsman, and the associated supporting documents he submitted;
• Mr B’s email to the Ombudsman dated 21 August;
• The Council’s ‘Procedures for dealing with alleged breaches of the member code of conduct’; and,
• Mr B’s responses to a draft version of this statement.

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What I found

10. Firstly, with reference to paragraph 8 above, the Ombudsman has no power to consider any parts of the complaint about the actions of the Parish Clerk.
11. And whist I appreciate Mr B is unhappy with the District Council’s decision to take no further action in relation to his complaint about the Chairman, the Ombudsman cannot question the merits of its decision, unless there is evidence of administrative fault in the way it was made.
12. In that regard, Mr B questions why, as part of the investigation into his code of conduct complaint, the District Council did not speak to one of the three councillors who had specific knowledge and oversight of Mr B’s proposal.
13. But even if the Ombudsman felt the District Council should have contacted this councillor, I am not persuaded it would have affected the District Council’s decision not to pursue the complaint further. In particular, the District Council’s decision letter notes Mr B’s concerns were also raised directly with the Parish Council, which had apologised and taken steps to remedy the errors. The District Council concluded there would be no useful purpose for there to be a formal investigation, so decided to take no further action on the code of conduct complaint.
14. With reference to paragraph 5 above, as the outcome is likely to have been the same, I do not see that Mr B has suffered an injustice as a result of the alleged fault in the way the Council conducted its code of conduct investigation.
15. Furthermore, and again with reference to paragraph 5, as the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction in this case is limited to considering the administrative actions of the District Council, it is unlikely we could achieve a worthwhile outcome beyond the remedial actions already undertaken by the Parish Council.
16. For the above reasons, I do not consider the Ombudsman should start an investigation into Mr B’s complaint.

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Final decision

17. The Ombudsman will not investigate Mr B’s complaint. This is because the Ombudsman cannot consider complaints about the actions of a Parish Council, the alleged administrative fault by the District Council has not affected its decision on the code of conduct complaint, and our continued involvement in the matter would achieve no worthwhile outcome.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman