Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about the Council’s decision not to investigate a complaint that councillor breached the code of conduct. We have not seen enough evidence of fault in the Council’s actions. Nor will we investigate his complaint about the Council’s refusal to consider a complaint about comments allegedly made by the Chief Executive as we do not consider Mr X has suffered a significant personal injustice on this point.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains about the Council’s decision not to investigate his complaint that a councillor breached the Code of Conduct.
2. He also complains the Council refused to accept his complaint about comments he says were made by the Chief Executive.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. 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, 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

4. I considered information provided by the complainant.
5. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

6. 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.
7. From the information I have seen, the Monitoring Officer assessed Mr X’s complaint in consultation with the Council’s Inependent Person and determined there was no breach of the code.
8. 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 someone disagree with the decision the organisation made.
9. I have considered the steps the organisation took to consider Mr X’s complaint about the councillor and the information it took account of. It appears the Council followed its procedures for considering complaints that councillors have breached the Code of Conduct. I have not seen evidence of fault in how it took the decision and I therefore cannot question whether that decision was right or wrong.
10. Mr X also complained about comments he says the Chief Executive made about flags people have attached to street furniture such as lighting columns or painted on highway roundabouts. He says by refusing to consider his complaint the Council is allowing racism to flourish and is affecting community cohesion.
11. I recognise Mr X may find the flags distressing, but it is not for the Ombudsman to reach a judgement about the significance of a flag to some people but not to others. Mr X has no authority to complain to us for anyone else. This means any distress he may personally experience from seeing the flags is not a significant enough injustice to warrant the Ombudsman using time and public money to investigate.

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Final decision

12. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because there is neither enough evidence of fault in the Council’s decisions not to investigate the complaint against the councillor or the Chief Executive or of it causing Mr X significant enough injustice to warrant investigation.  

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman