Summary: Mr B complains about the Council’s decision not to award Community Infrastructure Levy (“CIL”) funding for a project in his local park. He says the project would have provided important improvements to the park and benefited residents. The Ombudsman does not find fault in how the Council considered the application for CIL funding.

The complaint

1. The complainant, who I refer to as Mr B, complains about the way the Council considered an application for CIL neighbourhood funding. He says the Council scored the project highly but did not approve the application despite approving others that scored lower. He says the Council has not provided good reasons for declining the project and there was bias in the decision-making process. As a result, the local community has not benefited from the CIL funding.

Back to top

The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We investigate complaints of injustice caused by ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. I have used the word fault to refer to these. We consider whether there was fault in the way an organisation made its decision. If there was no fault in the decision making, we cannot question the outcome. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended)
3. If we are satisfied with an organisation’s actions or proposed actions, we can complete our investigation and issue a decision statement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 30(1B) and 34H(i), as amended)

Back to top

How I considered this complaint

4. I considered the information Mr B provided and spoke to him about the complaint, the made enquiries of the Council. I sent a copy of my draft decision to Mr B and the Council for their comments before making a final decision.

Back to top

What I found

Law, Guidance and Local Policies

5. CIL is a charge that can be levied by local authorities on new development in their area. CIL can be used for a wide range of infrastructure, including facilities such as play areas, open spaces, parks and sports facilities. Local authorities must spend the levy on infrastructure needed to support the development of their area, and they will decide what infrastructure is needed.
6. Where all or part of a chargeable development is within the area of a parish council, the charging authority must pass a proportion of the CIL receipts to the parish council. This is called the neighbourhood portion. Where there is no parish council, communities can still benefit from the neighbourhood portion. The local authority will keep the levy receipts but should engage with the communities and agree how best to spend the neighbourhood funding.
7. The law does not set out a specific process for agreeing how the neighbourhood portion should be spent. Local authorities should use existing community consultation and engagement procedures. The consultation should be at the neighbourhood level and proportionate to the CIL receipts and scale of proposed development.
8. The Council had a CIL neighbourhood fund guidance note for 2021. It said, in the absence of parishes, the Council would retain CIL receipts and allocate these by the local wards. It said the Council would consider proposals for community led projects of between £1,000 and £10,000. Proposals needed to be submitted between certain dates in August to September 2021. It would assess bids against a range of criteria and score each project. Any projects deemed suitable to be granted funding would be presented to the Executive Member for Regeneration who would have the final say on which projects were approved.

Background

9. In August 2021 the Council opened a consultation about a park based in Mr B’s ward. The consultation was to gather opinions from the local community about what residents would like to see in the local park. It was not directly part of the CIL procedure. The Council held consultation events on three occasions in August 2021. It says council officers collated and analysed the results through September 2021.
10. Mr B is part of a local residents’ group for the park. The group applied for CIL funding for a covered seating area within the park in September 2021. The Council also received several applications for other wards. In October 2021 the CIL fund officer group discussed the application and officers completed evaluations.
11. In late October 2021 the Council announced a by-election for Mr B’s ward. This started a ‘purdah’. This Council says that for this reason, it could not publish the results of its consultation for the park, as it was a contentious issue.
12. In November 2021, the Council produced a design for a potential layout for the park, based on the comments received.
13. The by-election took place in early December 2021. In mid-December 2021, the Council produced a report for cabinet members on the applications for CIL funding. The Council approved most applications. The application from Mr B’s group scored fourth highest out of 12 applications. However, the Council decided not to support the application that year. It said this was because the park was in the middle of a public consultation, and it needed to work through the information to understand what the local needs were.
14. In January 2022 the Council published its report for the consultation. In February 2022 it held a further public event about the findings of the consultation.
15. Mr B complained about how the Council considered the application. He said the Council was wrong to say the park was in the middle of a consultation as the consultation took place in August 2021. He said the Council could have evaluated the responses by the time it made its decision. He said it was unfair the Council had approved other applications with lower scores but not their application, which had scored highly. He said he believed the decision was based on bias, as his community group was led a councillor who represented an opposing political party to that of the member who had the final say.
16. The Council did not uphold Mr B’s complaint.

Findings

17. There are no specific regulations or guidance on how councils must score or reach decisions on what infrastructure proposals to fund using CIL neighbourhood funds. It is for Council’s to set their own criteria.
18. The Council set out its criteria in its guidance note. This included scoring each project based on several factors. However, it did not specify that proposals scoring higher or lower than a certain figure, or compared to other proposals, must be accepted or rejected. The Council could reach a decision based on all factors it considered relevant, individually for each proposal.
19. The Council has given its reason for why it did not approve the application. That was because it had not finished its consultation into wider improvements for the park. I understand Mr B’s assertion that the Council initially gained views as part of the consultation four months before its decision on CIL funding. However, the Council has provided reasons for why it had not yet finalised its findings from the consultation or decided what impact that would have on any changes to the park going forward, including delay due to purdah as part of a by-election. This was a decision for the Council to make and I cannot question the merits of that decision. The Council followed the relevant law, guidance, and its local procedures in deciding the application. Therefore, I cannot find fault.
20. I also cannot find evidence the Council’s decision was based on bias. I understand councillors had the final decision on the whether to approve the application. However, the recommendation not to approve the application was made by officers who were not elected members. The Council has explained their reasons for making this recommendation, and again, I cannot question the merits of that decision.

Back to top

Final decision

21. I do not find fault in how the Council considered the application for CIL funding.

Back to top

Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman