Worcester City Council (24 009 217)
Category : Other Categories > Councillor conduct and standards
Decision : Closed after initial enquiries
Decision date : 01 Oct 2024
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about delay by the Council in responding to Mr X’s complaint that a councillor made antisemitic comments. This is because there is insufficient personal loss or harm to Mr X to justify our further involvement.
The complaint
- Mr X complained that the Council had not responded to his complaints that a councillor made antisemitic comments. Mr X wanted a response and for the Council to issue a public statement about the comments as he was concerned for local Jewish people.
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 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.
- I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
- In the period after Mr X complained to us, the Council provided its complaint response to him, apologising for the delay which is said was caused by an oversight. The Council did not uphold Mr X’s complaint as it did not consider the conduct complained about equated to a breach of the councillor’s code of conduct.
- While I recognise Mr X has strong feelings about this matter, I do not consider he is personally impacted to a degree, from either the comments or the Council’s handling of his complaint, that would justify our further involvement. We have limited resources and must direct them to the most serious cases, in the public interest.
Final decision
- We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because he is not caused a level of personal loss or harm from his complaint to justify our further involvement.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman