London Borough of Camden (24 000 790)
Category : Other Categories > Councillor conduct and standards
Decision : Closed after initial enquiries
Decision date : 23 Sep 2024
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint that Councillors did not respond to her emails. Any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement.
The complaint
- Ms X complained that councillors had not responded to emails she had sent them about the condition of her social housing. She said that lack of response left her feeling upset. She also said the Council failed to respond to her concerns. She wants the councillors to apologise.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
- We 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 or continue 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), as amended, section 34(B))
How I considered this complaint
- I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
- I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
- We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint about the councillors not responding to her emails, or the Council’s failure to respond to these concerns.
- Firstly, we will normally only investigate a complaint where the complainant has suffered serious loss, harm or distress as a direct result of faults or failures by an organisation. We would not consider she had been caused a significant injustice by the councillors’ actions.
- Secondly, in response to our enquiries the Council said her concerns about councillors not responding to emails was not a code of conduct matter, but one of due diligence. It explained that code of conduct was primarily around improper, or bad behaviour. There is not enough evidence of fault in how it made that decision to justify our involvement.
- The Council accepted it had no record of sending Ms X a response to her complaint. However, it is not a good use of public resources to investigate complaint handling when we are not looking at the substantive matter.
Final decision
- We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint because any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman