Summary: The Ombudsman will not investigate how the Council dealt with a complaint about a breach of its code of conduct. This is because it is unlikely he would find fault by the Council.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I shall refer to as Mr X, has complained about the conduct of two local councillors. Mr X contacted the councillors for assistance in relation to his environmental and public health campaign. Mr X says the members failed to properly interact with him and did not answer his questions about the matter. Mr X believes the councillors breached the Council’s code of conduct.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word ‘fault’ to refer to these. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint. I refer to this as ‘injustice’. 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.

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

3. 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)

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How I considered this complaint

4. I have considered Mr X’s complaint and the Council’s responses. I invited Mr X to comment on a draft of this decision and have considered his comments in response.

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What I found

5. Local Authorities have a duty to designate a Monitoring Officer to ensure the lawfulness and fairness of authority decision making. The Monitoring Officer must ensure that the authority, its officers and members maintain the highest standards of conduct.
6. Each council has different rules for dealing with complaints about code of conduct breaches. In this case, the Monitoring Officer will first assess the complaint to decide if the allegations could amount to a breach of the code of conduct. If so, the complaint is assessed further to determine if there has been a breach and if action is needed.

What happened

7. Mr X contacted two local councillors in November 2019 to raise concerns about emissions and odours from a local business and the environmental and public health implications. Mr X says the councillors failed to provide adequate support and did not respond to the many questions he asked. Mr X also complains that the councillors did not keep the Council, or the appropriate committees, informed about his concerns.
8. The Council’s Monitoring Officer considered Mr X’s complaint and the councillor’s responses to the allegations. However, the Monitoring Officer decided the code of conduct had not been breached and therefore the complaint did not progress further than the initial assessment stage. The Monitoring Officer said the councillors had provided evidence to show they had been involved with Mr X’s campaign. They had facilitated meetings with the Council’s environmental health officers and raised the issue with the Council’s leader and the Director of Public Health. The Monitoring Officer also said they would not expect the councillors to answer Mr X’s questions as these should be dealt with on an operational level. However, the questions were forwarded to the relevant person to respond.
9. Mr X is unhappy with the response from the Monitoring Officer. He says this is based on flawed and incorrect information from the councillors.

Assessment

10. I will not investigate this complaint about how the Council dealt with Mr X’s complaint about a code of conduct breach. This is because I am unlikely to find fault by the Council.
11. It is not the Ombudsman’s role to replace a Council’s decision with his own. Where a decision has been made in line with the correct procedure, taking account of the relevant evidence, the Ombudsman will generally not criticise the decision, even if the complainant does not agree with it.
12. In this case, I am satisfied the Monitoring Officer dealt with the matter in line with the Council’s rules for dealing with code of conduct complaints, before deciding there had not been a breach. This was a decision the Monitoring Officer was entitled to make.
13. I understand Mr X is unhappy with the Monitoring Officer’s response. He says the councillors misrepresented their actions and he has referred to the many questions he asked which were not answered. However, I am satisfied the Monitoring Officer did properly consider and address the issues Mr X raised before deciding the code of conduct had not been breached. Therefore, it is unlikely I could find fault by the Council.

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Final decision

14. The Ombudsman will not investigate this complaint. This is because he is unlikely to find fault by the Council.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman