Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about how the Council dealt with a complaint about the conduct of councillors. This is because we are unlikely to find fault and the complainant has not suffered significant injustice.

The complaint

1. Ms X has complained about how the Council dealt with her complaint about the conduct of three councillors.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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))

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided by Ms X and the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

4. Local Authorities have a duty to designate a Monitoring Officer to ensure the lawfulness and fairness of authority decision making. The Monitoring Officer must ensure that the authority, its officers and members maintain the highest standards of conduct. Each council has different rules for dealing with complaints about code of conduct breaches.
5. The Ombudsman does not provide an appeal against the Monitoring Officer’s decisions. We are also unable to investigate or comment on the actions of the councillors complained about. Where a decision has been made in line with the correct procedure, taking account of the relevant evidence, the Ombudsman will generally not criticise the decision, even if the complainant does not agree with it.
6. In this case, I am satisfied the Monitoring Officer properly considered Ms X’s concerns and consulted the Independent Person. The Monitoring Officer decided that as one of the councillors complained about was no longer a councillor it would not be appropriate or in the public interest to take further action. The Monitoring Officer also decided an informal resolution would be appropriate regarding Ms X's concerns about the other councillors and has recommended they apologise to Ms X for failing to respond to her correspondence.
7. The Monitoring Officer was entitled to use their professional judgement to decide a formal investigation was not necessary and this decision is in line with the Council’s arrangements for dealing with code of conduct complaints.
8. There was a delay before the Monitoring Officer responded to Ms X’s complaint. However, I do not consider that the injustice Ms X suffered because of the delay would be significant enough to warrant an investigation by the Ombudsman.

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Final decision

9. We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint because we are unlikely to find fault. Ms X has not suffered any significant injustice because of the delays dealing with her complaint.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman