Summary: Mr X complains about the Council’s handling of his complaint made against a member of staff. We will not investigate the complaint because we are unlikely to add to the investigation already carried out by the Council and an investigation is unlikely to lead to a different outcome.

The complaint

1. The complainant, who I refer to as Mr X, says the Council did not fairly handle his complaint made against a member of staff. He says it should be investigated by an independent investigating officer from another service.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. The Ombudsman investigates 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 may decide not to continue with 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, or
• we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation, or
• further investigation would not lead to a different outcome. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6))

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided by Mr X, including the Council’s final response to his complaint.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
5. I gave Mr X the opportunity to comment on my draft decision.

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My assessment

6. Mr X became involved in a dispute with a Council employee about missing items belonging to a club of which he is a member.
7. He complained to the Council about the behaviour of the employee and about the way the Council dealt with his complaint. He received the first stage response from the area manager of the service involved and the stage two response from the service’s technical officer.
8. At Stage 2 the Council partially upheld his complaint about its handling of his complaint due to the response being outside its timeframe and a lack of regular updates.
9. With regard to his complaint made against the staff member, the Council considered the communication sent between the two parties and while it noted some inappropriate and unprofessional language it did not uphold this part of his complaint.
10. I do not consider an investigation by the Ombudsman would be likely to add to that already carried out by the Council or that a different outcome would be likely. I note the Council partially upheld the part of Mr X’s complaint about complaint handling but we will not generally investigate such complaints when we are not investigating the substantive issue.

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Final decision

11. We will not investigate this complaint. This is because we are unlikely to add to the investigation already carried out by the Council and an investigation is unlikely to lead to a different outcome.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman