Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about how the Council decided not to appoint Mr X to the school admissions appeals panel or allow him to attend the training for the role. This is because there is not enough evidence of fault to justify an investigation by the Ombudsman.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains the Council wrongly refused to appoint him or allow him to attend training for people appointed to the school admissions appeal panel.

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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 the complainant and the Council.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. Mr X complained the Council did not appoint him and would not allow him to attend training for school admissions panel members. The Council told Mr X it would not appoint him to the panel because it has a legal duty to disqualify anyone who has a connection with the Council which raises doubt about their ability to act impartially.
6. The Council considered Mr X’s expression of interest and explained it would not appoint him to the panel or allow him to take part in the training because it considered he could compromise the Council’s legal duties to act fairly and impartially. It explained it had treated Mr X as vexatious on several occasions, he had made multiple unsubstantiated allegations, and he could not accept Council decisions. It provided examples of these behaviours.
7. I will not investigate this complaint. The Ombudsman is not an appeal body. This means we do not take a second look at a decision to decide if it was wrong. Instead, we look at the processes an organisation followed to make its decision. If we consider it followed those processes correctly, we cannot question whether the decision was right or wrong, regardless of whether Mr X disagrees.
8. 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. I do not consider that the Councils actions have caused Mr X significant injustice.
9. We usually do not investigate complaints from volunteers about a Council if it would be considered a personnel issue if a staff member complained. This is because the law says we cannot investigate personnel issues and the cases are so similar.

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Final decision

10. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because there is not enough evidence of fault in the Council’s actions, or significant enough injustice to justify an investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman