Oxfordshire County Council (24 007 447)
Category : Other Categories > Land
Decision : Closed after initial enquiries
Decision date : 11 Sep 2024
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint that the Council failed to provide information requested about proposals to dispose of a piece of land as this is best dealt with by the Information Commissioner’s Office.
The complaint
- Mrs X complains the Council has failed to provide information she requested from it regarding its proposals to dispose of a piece of land and to properly deal with the subsequent complaint she made to it about this. Mrs X says that she and local residents are concerned about the potential loss of the land for development.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
- 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, there is another body better placed to consider this complaint (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))
- We normally expect someone to refer the matter to the Information Commissioner if they have a complaint about access to information. However, we may decide to investigate if we think there are good reasons. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)
How I considered this complaint
- I considered information provided by the complainant.
- I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
- I recognise Mrs X has strong feelings about the proposal to disposal of Council land but as no final decision has yet been made regarding this, any injustice caused to Mrs X is currently speculative and does not provide grounds for us to investigate.
- In addition, Mrs X’s information request is best dealt with by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) as it is the UK’s independent regulator in respect of access to information.
- I recognise that Mrs X is unhappy as she feels the Council has not properly responded to her complaint about how it handled her information requests, but this does not cause her a level of harm or loss that would justify our further involvement. We have limited resources and must direct them to the more serious cases.
- For these reasons, we will not investigate.
Final decision
- We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because it is best dealt with by the ICO.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman