Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s handling of a complaint about councillors’ conduct. This is because there is not enough evidence of its or the councillors’ actions causing the complainant specific significant injustice which warrants investigation.

The complaint

1. Mr T says the Council has failed properly to investigate and reply to his complaint about the conduct of council members.

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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 effect 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 the tests set out in our Assessment Code are not met. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council’s responses to his conduct complaint.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. Some of the councillor conduct Mr M complained about happened in the course of a committee process we have already decided not to investigate because it did not cause Mr M significant enough injustice to warrant our involvement. We will not consider those matters again, or separately consider the way the Council handled a complaint about something we are not investigating.
6. Other councillor actions were about responses to Mr M as a resident of a Council ward area, and were therefore pastoral in nature, rather than administrative. As we can only investigate administrative matters there is no basis for us to consider separately how the Council handled a complaint about councillors’ pastoral actions. In any event, none of these events has caused Mr M a significant enough injustice to warrant our involvement.
7. I recognise Mr M has pursued the underlying issues and his complaints in the interests of disabled people in his area, but we will not investigate matters which are effectively part of a campaign rather than specific council actions which have affected the complainant. The latter is not the case here.

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Final decision

8. We will not investigate Mr M’s complaint because there is not enough evidence of the Council’s or councillors’ actions causing Mr M significant injustice, so the matter does not warrant us investigating.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman