Summary: We will not investigate how the Council handled Mr X’s complaint about personnel matters as there is no worthwhile outcome achievable.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains about how the Council dealt with his complaint about the actions of a senior Council officer.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We cannot investigate a complaint if it is about a personnel issue. (Local Government Act 1974, Schedule 5/5a, paragraph 4, as amended)
3. The courts have said we can decide not to investigate a complaint about any action by an organisation concerning a matter which the law says we cannot investigate. (R (on the application of M) v Commissioner for Local Administration [2006] EHWCC 2847 (Admin))
4. 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 no worthwhile outcome achievable by our investigation. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

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How I considered this complaint

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

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My assessment

7. The complaints made by Mr X relate to personnel matters which we cannot investigate. Therefore, we will not investigate the way the Council handled the related complaints because we could not achieve anything meaningful.

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Final decision

8. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about how the Council dealt with his complaint about personnel matters because we could not achieve anything meaningful.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman