Bristol City Council (21 005 658)
Category : Other Categories > Councillor conduct and standards
Decision : Closed after initial enquiries
Decision date : 07 Sep 2021
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s response to a complaint Ms X made about a local councillor. This is because there is no evidence of fault by the Council and there is insufficient injustice caused to Ms X to warrant an investigation.
The complaint
- The complainant, who I refer to as Ms X, says the Council did not properly address the complaint she had made about a local councillor, in connection with a planning application, when it decided to take no further action.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
- The Ombudsman investigates 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 an investigation if we decide:
- there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating, or
- any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6))
How I considered this complaint
- I considered information provided by Ms X.
- I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
- We do not offer a right of appeal against a council’s decision on member conduct complaints and while we can consider if there was fault in the way the council considered the complaint, we will only investigate complaints if there is sufficient injustice to warrant our involvement or we consider it in the public interest to do so.
- In this case, there is no evidence to suggest fault affected the Council’s decision on the complaint Ms X made against the councillor and there is insufficient injustice to warrant an investigation.
Final decision
- We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint because there is no evidence of fault by the Council and there is insufficient injustice caused to Ms X to warrant an investigation.
Investigator’s decision on behalf of the Ombudsman
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman