Summary: The complainant says there was fault by the Council’s Monitoring Officer and Deputy Monitoring Officer in their handling of a complaint about the Police and Crime Commissioner. I have closed this complaint because the Ombudsman has no power to investigate it.

The complaint

1. Mr X, who complains on behalf of his daughter and son-in-law, says the Council’s Monitoring Officer and Deputy Monitoring Officer are at fault in how they considered a complaint regarding the Police and Crime Commissioner’s lack of support regarding harassment of his daughter’s family.

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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. Section 26 (8) and Schedule 5, paragraph 2 of the 1974 Act imposes a restriction on our investigatory powers. It says we cannot investigate action taken by or on behalf of any local policing body in connection with the investigation or prevention of crime.
4. It is not a good use of public resources to investigate complaints about complaint procedures if we are unable to deal with the substantive issue.

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How I considered this complaint

5. I considered the information provided by Mr X and I discussed the complaint with him. I set out my initial thoughts on the complaint in a draft decision statement and I considered Mr X’s comments in response.

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What I found

6. These set out the arrangements for complaints about Police and Crime Commissioners. The Regulations do not identify a role for a council’s Monitoring Officer to consider a complaint about a Police and Crime Commissioner.

Background

7. Mr X complained to the Council’s Monitoring Officer and Deputy Monitoring Officer about the actions of the local Police and Crime Commissioner. He said the Commissioner had failed to support his daughter’s reports of harassment. Mr X says the Commissioner should have intervened and held the local police to account as it is the role of the Commissioner to account for effective policing in the county.
8. The Monitoring Officers decided not to investigate Mr X’s concerns. They said his complaint was about matters to do with the investigation or prevention of a crime.
9. Mr X says the Monitoring Officer and Deputy Monitoring Officer did not consider his complaint properly. He says they:

• prevented his complaint about conduct being processed;
• misrepresented the facts;
• were biased and insensitive;
• colluded with the Commissioner, the local police force, the Chair of the Police and Crime Panel and a Councillor; and
• took too long to determine the matter and did not provide updates.

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Final decision

10. I have ended my consideration of this complaint. The Monitoring Officers have no role in considering a complaint about the conduct of the Commissioner and so there was no fault in them not doing so. We will not look at how the Council dealt with Mr X’s concerns about the Monitoring Officers because we have no jurisdiction to look at the substantive issue.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman