Summary: We cannot investigate this complaint about the Council’s request to postpone local elections as it impacts all or most of the people in the Council’s area and is therefore outside our legal remit. Mr X is not caused a level of injustice that would warrant our involvement, from any fault in how the Council responded to his complaint.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains about the Council’s request to postpone the May 2026 local elections amid reorganization. Mr X says this will deny him the right to vote on local representatives' performance and erodes his trust in local democracy. Mr X also complains about the Council’s response to the complaint he made to it about this. Mr X says the response was curt and dismissive and did not answer all the points he raised.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
3. We cannot investigate something that affects all or most of the people in a council’s area. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(7), as amended)
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 any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement or we could achieve no meaningful outcome (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. In January 2026, the Council asked the Government to postpone its May 2026 local elections, in response to the Government’s invitation for councils engaged in local government reorganisation to submit such requests. The Government considered the Council’s request and is to bring forward legislation to allow it, and several other councils, to postpone local elections for one year.
8. We cannot investigate the Council’s decision to request postponement of the elections as this impacts all or most of the people in the Council’s area and as per paragraph three, is outside our legal remit. Mr X is not caused any greater degree of injustice from this to any other voter in the area.
9. Additionally, as the Government has agreed to the Council’s request and is bringing forward legislation to facilitate it, there is, in any case, no meaningful outcome that we could achieve.
10. We will not investigate how the Council dealt with Mr X’s complaint as, in isolation, this does not cause him a level of injustice that would warrant our further involvement.

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Final decision

11. We cannot investigate Mr X’s complaint because it impacts all or most of the people in the Council’s area and so is not within our remit. Mr X is not caused a level of injustice from the Council’s complaint handling in isolation to warrant our further involvement and so we will not investigate.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman