Summary: The Ombudsman will not investigate Mr C’s complaint about breach of his confidentiality and about the Council’s conduct because his injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement. Moreover, the Council has already apologised so it is unlikely we would be able to add anything more to the investigation. Where we are not investigating the underlying matter, we would not investigate the Council’s complaint handling.

The complaint

1. Mr C says the Council sent him some correspondence through email with an incorrect home address. When he complained about this to the officer who was responsible, he says the officer shouted at him through email by typing the word NO in capitals. Moreover, in one of the emails the officer concerned failed to start with Dear and just wrote Mr C which he found impolite.
2. Mr C then escalated this complaint to the officer’s line manager but they delayed responding to his complaint. When the manager finally called Mr C to resolve the complaint, he says she was ill prepared and failed to resolve the complaint.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word ‘fault’ to refer to these. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint. I refer to this as ‘injustice’. We provide a free service but must use public money carefully. We may decide not to start or continue with an investigation if we believe:
• the injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement, or
• it is unlikely we could add to any previous investigation by the Council, or
• there is another body better placed to consider this complaint, or (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)
4. We normally expect someone to refer the matter to the Information Commissioner if they have a complaint about data protection. However, we may decide to investigate if we think there are good reasons. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

5. I considered the complaint correspondence provided by the Council and the information provided by Mr C.

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What I found

6. On 23 August 2019 Mr C complained to the Council that they had emailed him correspondence with an incorrect home address and that this was a data breach. The Council responded to say that “NO” correspondence had been sent by post and later said the use of capital letters was a typographical error. The Council also apologised for this.
7. On 28 October 2019 Mr C complained to the Ombudsman who then forwarded the complaint to the council.
8. We must consider whether the complainant’s injustice is significant enough to warrant an investigation by the Ombudsman. In this instance the Council has made it clear that the incorrectly addressed correspondence was only ever sent to Mr C’s email address. Therefore, his injustice was not significant. In any case there is another body, the Office of the Information Commissioner, that is better placed to consider potential data breaches than the Ombudsman.
9. We also appreciate that the conduct of the officer might have caused offence to Mr C, but the Council has already apologised for this. It is therefore unlikely the Ombudsman will add to any previous investigation or recommend a different remedy.
10. Mr C has also complained about the way the Council handled his complaint. We will not investigate this part of the complaint. This is because where we are not investigating the underlying matter, we would not investigate the council’s complaint handling.
11. In his comments on my draft decision Mr C says he is complaining about individual officers. But the Ombudsman by law only considers complaints about the Council as a body, not about individual officers.

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Final decision

12. The Ombudsman will not investigate this complaint. This is because the injustice Mr C may have suffered is not significant enough to warrant our involvement.

Investigator’s final decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman