Summary: Mr X complains about the Council’s response to a Code of Conduct complaint he submitted against town councillors. The Ombudsman will not investigate the complaint because neither the claimed fault nor the injustice caused to Mr X is sufficient to warrant an investigation.

The complaint

1. The complainant, who I refer to as Mr X, complains about the Council’s response to his complaint that all town councillors present at a meeting at which he asked a question breached the members Code of Conduct. He says he has suffered injustice because his complaint has been rejected.

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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, 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 will lead to a different outcome, or
• we cannot achieve the outcome someone wants, or
• there is another body better placed to consider this complaint.

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

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How I considered this complaint

3. In considering the complaint I reviewed the information provided by Mr X. I gave him the opportunity to comment on my draft decision and considered what he said.

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What I found

4. Mr X asked a question at a town council meeting. He says contrary to the town council’s policy for receiving public questions at meetings, the councillors present at the meeting debated a matter related to the question and then voted on it.
5. Mr X complained about the actions of the councillors present at the meeting and the process they had followed in addressing his question. The town clerk responded to Mr X’s complaint and explained the action taken by the councillors. With regard to Mr X’s view that the councillors present at the meeting had not acted as reasonable and competent councillors in the way they had managed the process of dealing with his question, he was referred to the Council.
6. The Council considered Mr X’s complaint against all the town councillors at the meeting but rejected it having found no breach of the Code of Conduct. It also explained to Mr X that it could only look at complaints made against individual councillors, and not against the way a council runs its business.

Assessment

7. Mr X has clearly been disappointed by the councillors’ handling of his question and the Council’s response to his complaint. However, we do not investigate every complaint we receive and in this case I have seen no evidence of fault by the Council or injustice caused to Mr X sufficient to warrant a formal investigation by the Ombudsman.
8. In responding to my draft decision Mr X says he believes the town council was at fault and guilty of maladministration and service failure and that as a result he has suffered injustice. However, under the legislation which sets out the Ombudsman’s powers, complaints against town councillors and town councils fall outside our jurisdiction and cannot be investigated. While we can look at how a council as the principal authority dealt with such a complaint, in this case there is insufficient evidence of fault by the Council or injustice caused to Mr X to warrant an investigation.

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Final decision

9. The Ombudsman will not investigate this complaint. This is because neither the claimed fault nor the injustice caused to Mr X is sufficient to warrant an investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman