Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s handling of a code of conduct complaint against a parish councillor. This is because the complaint does not meet the tests in our Assessment Code on how we decide which complaints to investigate, as we could achieve no worthwhile outcome by investigating.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I refer to as Mr X, says it took the Council 2 years to decide it would take no further action on his code of conduct complaint against a parish councillor. He wants the Council to apologise for the failings in its previous investigation and conduct a new full investigation into the allegations, and the officers involved to resign.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
3. The Ombudsman can investigate 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:

• further investigation would not lead to a different outcome, or
• we cannot achieve the outcome someone wants, or
• we are satisfied with the action an organisation has taken to address the issues raised in a complaint.

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6) & (7))

4. And we cannot investigate the actions of bodies such as parish councils or individual parish councillors. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 25 and 34A, as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

5. I considered information provided by Mr X, and our Assessment Code.

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My assessment

6. The Ombudsman previously considered a complaint from Mr X in mid-2022, about the delay in determining this code of conduct complaint. The Ombudsman does not revisit matters which have already been dealt with under a previous complaint, so we will not reconsider the events prior to mid-2022.
7. And whilst I appreciate Mr X might have been frustrated by the Council’s subsequent handling of the complaint, we will not investigate the more recent events for the following reasons.
8. The law does not allow us to investigate the actions of the parish council or the individual parish councillor who was the subject of Mr X’s code of conduct complaint. Nor do we provide a right of appeal against the Council’s decision on the complaint. Rather, our role is limited to being able to consider the process by which a Council has considered such a complaint. But, with reference to paragraph 3 above, I do not consider an investigation by the Ombudsman could achieve any further worthwhile outcome here because:
• We cannot recommend disciplinary action against the officers involved in considering the complaint;
• It seems unlikely that another investigation by the Council would lead to a different decision, as the events being complained about occurred several years ago and it could not impose any sanctions on the parish councillor as they have already resigned;
• The Council has already taken satisfactory action to address the procedural issues raised by Mr X’s complaint, as it has apologised to him for the delay in determining the matter, revised its processes, and now has permanent staff in place to handle such cases.

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Final decision

9. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because we could not achieve any further worthwhile outcome.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman