Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about how the Council dealt with a complaint that three councillors breached the code of conduct. This is s because there is insufficient evidence of fault by the Council.

The complaint

1. The complainant, who I will call Mr X, complains about how the Council’s Monitoring Officer dealt with his report that three town councillors had breached the code of conduct when they wrote to him to say they would no longer accept Freedom of Information (FoI) requests from him. Mr X also complains about how the Council considered his complaint about the Monitoring Officer’s decision.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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 or may decide not to continue with an investigation if we decide there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6))
3. The Information Commissioner's Office considers complaints about freedom of information. Its decision notices may be appealed to the First Tier Tribunal (Information Rights). So where we receive complaints about freedom of information, we normally consider it reasonable to expect the person to refer the matter to the Information Commissioner.

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How I considered this complaint

4. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
5. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

6. Councils have a duty to designate a Monitoring Officer. The Monitoring Officer must ensure that the Council, its officers, and councillors maintain high standards of conduct. The Council code of conduct sets out these standards. Each council has different rules for dealing with complaints about code of conduct breaches.
7. The Ombudsman does not provide an appeal against the Monitoring Officer’s decision. We can only look at how the complaint was considered. We are also unable to investigate or comment on the actions of the councillors complained about.
8. In this case, the Monitoring Officer considered Mr X’s complaint and consulted with the Council’s Independent Person before reaching their decision that they would not investigate the matter further because it was about dissatisfaction with the Town Council’s decision and policy. rather than being a breach of the code of conduct. Furthermore, the Monitoring Officer concluded that Mr X should refer the matter to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) if he believes his FoI requests had not been properly handled.
9. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint. This is because the Council’s Monitoring officer dealt with Mr X’s concerns in line with the Council’s criteria for code of conduct complaints, so it is unlikely we would find fault.
10. I will not investigate how the Council dealt with Mr X’s complaint about the Monitoring Officer’s decision. This is because it is not a good use of public funds to consider complaints about complaint handling when we are not considering the substantive issues.

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Final decision

11. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because there is insufficient evidence of fault by the Council.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman