Summary: We will not investigate how the Council handled Mr X’s complaint about a councillor. There is not enough significant injustice to warrant an investigation.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains the Council mishandled his complaints about the procedures it followed when it investigated complaints against him in his capacity as a councillor.

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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.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. We will not normally investigate a complaint unless there is good reason to believe that the complainant has suffered significant personal injustice as a direct result of the actions or inactions of the service provider.
6. This means that 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 the service provider, or
• there are continuous and ongoing instances of a lower level injustice that remain unresolved over a long period of time.
7. Mr X is unhappy about how the Council carried out an investigation into complaints made against him.
8. The Council decided Mr X had breached the Code of Conduct. It recommended he apologise (which he had already done) and carry out some training.
9. Although Mr X says he was distressed by what happened and his reputation has been damaged, the level of injustice experienced and the actions required to remedy the breaches identified are not such that they meet our threshold for investigation. Therefore, we will not consider this complaint further.
10. Furthermore, the Monitoring Officer considered the points Mr X made relating to the procedural impropriety in the investigation against him. These were put to the Panel which accepted Officer’s findings. Mr X may have a different view but this does not mean the Council was at fault. There is not enough evidence of fault in how to justify an investigation.

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Final decision

11. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because there is not enough evidence of fault to justify an investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman