Summary: Mr D complains at the reply he received to a letter and enclosures he sent to the Council in October 2019. We do not uphold the complaint finding no fault in the Council’s reply or else using our discretion not to continue with the investigation.

The complaint

1. I have called the complainant ‘Mr D’. He complains at the reply provided by the Council to a letter and enclosures he submitted in October 2019 where he asked it to consider several areas of concern to him.
2. Mr D says as a result he has not received an answer to various complaints and enquiries he has made. This has put him to unnecessary time and trouble in pursuing these matters.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. We investigate complaints of injustice caused by ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. I have used the word ‘fault’ to refer to these. We cannot question whether a council’s decision is right or wrong simply because the complainant disagrees with it. We must consider whether there was fault in the way the decision was reached. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended)
4. 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 fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained, or
• the injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)

5. If we are satisfied with a council’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)

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How I considered this complaint

6. Before issuing this decision statement I read through Mr D’s complaint to the Ombudsman comprising a covering letter and multiple attachments referred to in the text below. Mr D included a copy of the Council’s reply to his complaint as one of those attachments. I also sent a draft decision statement to Mr D and the Council setting out my thinking. I considered any comments received in response to the draft before completing this statement.

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What I found

Key Facts

7. In October 2019 Mr D gave two files to the Council containing a letter and multiple attachments. Mr D’s letter asked the Council to consider six issues. These were:
1. how it consulted local communities through meetings; particularly its decision to set up ‘strategic neighbourhood forums’ covering Mr D’s locality and others in the Borough;
2. the content of and response to an email he sent in April 2018, to councillors in the locality where he lives;
3. the content of and response to an email he sent in May 2018, specifically to his local ward councillors;
4. a letter he sent to the Council Leader in August 2018;
5. the content of and response to an email he sent in September 2018 to an individual ward councillor;
6. the content of and response to an email and letter he sent in April 2019, to all councillors in the locality where he lives.
8. Mr D said consideration of these issues showed that local Councillors were failing “to honour, respect or comply with Council policies, constitution, code of corporate governance and frontline Councillor job profiles by refusing to be open/transparent and engage/communicate with members of the public”. Mr D quoted from passages from the Council’s Code of Governance and constitution he considered relevant.
9. Mr D went into detail on each of the six points above. It will serve no purpose for me to restate all Mr D has said in his correspondence, but I identify its key themes as follows:

• He does not consider the neighbourhood forums work in the way the Council suggested when making public statements about their purpose. Mr D complains the meetings for his locality take place just once a year; do not follow consultation with the public on agenda items; do not allow public questions; do not allow the public to add items to the agenda and officers do not report on matters of interest to the local community. Consequently, Mr D says he cannot raise several matters of interest to him such as a local housing development, an area of local green space, long term plans for certain Council owned buildings, library services and the future of the locality town centre.
• In his email of April 2018 Mr D said councillors were “deliberately refusing to be open/transparent and engage/communicate with members of the public either in person or as representatives at public meetings”. Mr D said Councillors would not answer questions he asked of them. These cross referenced matters raised in the first part of the complaint; for example, questions about the future of buildings owned by the Council, its library service and the locality town centre. Mr D also drew attention to one particular Councillor whom he said had failed to maintain high standards at a meeting in February 2017 when Mr D asked a question.
• In his email of June 2018 Mr D had sent comments to councillors further to pledges made by the Council to tackle ‘rogue landlords’. Mr D believes the Council should adopt a selective licensing scheme for landlords. A Council officer replied on behalf of the Council saying this was something under consideration. Mr D pressed for more detail. In response the Council said it would update him when it had decided on a policy for consultation. Mr D considered this reply avoided his specific enquiries about this matter.
• In his letter of August 2018, Mr D asked the Council Leader to note how the Council dealt with an earlier complaint he made. We investigated that complaint issuing a decision in April 2017. We found fault with the customer service provided by the Council to Mr D. The Council said it had replied to a complaint from Mr D in October 2015, but he had evidently not received this. It did not send us a copy of its reply until summer 2016. Mr D wanted to know if the letter dated October 2015 was produced contemporaneously.
• Mr D’s email of September 2018 raised with one of his local ward councillors a proposal he had made in 2014 for a heritage trail through the local town centre. The Councillor said they could not recall Mr D presenting the detail of this proposal. Mr D said this missed his point, he wanted to know the Council’s view on the merits of his idea now. Mr D implied he had received no further response.
• Mr D’s email of April 2019 followed him placing an advert in local media inviting people to contact him if unhappy with matters related to the locality town centre. Mr D promised to pass their concerns on to the Council. So, his email appended several messages from local residents expressing various concerns. These included wanting information about any plans to regenerate the locality town centre and its plans for a building owned by the Council.

10. The Council replied, via the Council Leader in December 2019. The reply noted the trouble Mr D had gone to in compiling information and apologised for the delay in reply. But the Council said it was unclear what Mr D wanted “other than to revisit your dissatisfaction with historical issues and your ward councillors”. The reply suggested Mr D had raised the same matters as in the earlier complaint to this office which we completed investigating in April 2017. It said it would not “be an efficient or effective use of resources to undertake a further examination or review of the same matters and provide a substantive response even if you are now raising different questions or want a separate or different investigation on the same issues”. The Council said it would continue to respond to any specific requests for information made by Mr D via a single point of contact (an arrangement it has had with him for some years). It also said individual Councillors were not obliged to enter correspondence with him. Finally, the letter provided Mr D with an update on the Council’s plans to introduce new policy for private rented housing.
11. Mr D asks us to consider if this is a reasonable reply, particularly the suggestion that local councillors do not need to reply to his contacts.
12. In his correspondence to this office Mr D has also highlighted his experience in October 2019 when he attended a meeting of his local neighbourhood forum. He asked about the Council’s consultation with homeowners in respect of potential selective licensing of landlords in the area where he lives. Mr D considers the reply he received from a local Councillor was dismissive and suggested the Council had already decided its policy. He said he did not find the meeting useful. He has brought this to our attention to emphasise his concerns about the use of neighbourhood forums, summarised at paragraph 7a) above.

My findings

13. In considering this complaint, I note at the outset that Mr D clearly cares strongly about the locality where he lives. It is apparent he has various areas of dissatisfaction related to the condition of the locality. For example, Mr D has concerns about a housing development approved for the town centre. He also has concerns about the number of privately rented homes on the estate where he lives. I note that Mr D also feels strongly about the need for local accountability of elected councillors and officers in connection with these matters.
14. On the general point raised by Mr D which relates to those sub-heads of his complaint summarised at points 7 b), c), e) and f) I agree with the Council that its councillors are not obliged to enter into correspondence with him. I find that most of Mr D’s correspondence with his local Councillors seeks to engage them in discussion about matters of policy. There is nothing wrong in Mr D wanting to start such discussions; for example, around the benefits he perceives in a selective licensing scheme for landlords or having a town centre heritage trail. But it will be for individual councillors if they choose to engage in such discussion.
15. I note they have chosen to do so on occasion. For example, when Mr D raised the matter of policy towards private rented sector housing. I consider the reply Mr D received, referred to a relevant officer, was helpful in letting Mr D know what work the Council was doing in this area. I note the Council has also followed that up by signposting Mr D to further work on its proposed policy. There has been no fault in its approach to this issue.
16. But if Councillors do not wish to engage in a debate about future prospective policies then that is something they are entitled to do.
17. Turning to that part of Mr D’s complaint summarised at paragraph 7d) I consider the Council can reasonably decided not to revisit how it investigated his complaint from 2015. The specific issue raised by Mr D, about whether it wrote its letter of October 2015 contemporaneously is one he raised with us at the time. We explained why we saw no merit in pursuing enquiries at the time we investigated. It is not an issue we can re-visit after this length of time and nor would we expect the Council to do so.
18. That leaves me to consider the matter summarised at point 7a) concerning the grievances Mr D has with the neighbourhood forum structure set up by the Council. I can understand Mr D’s concerns here. The Council has pointed me to a background paper considered by its elected Councillors (which is in the public domain) which explained the background to its decisions to set up the forums. It also publishes minutes of the meetings online.
19. However, unless someone researches the background paper there is little on its website which explains the functions of these forums. There is a general statement that the forums “can help residents resolve issues and give the community a voice to influence and inform decisions that impact on their area”. But there is no detail. For example, nothing that explains what sort of issues a resident may expect the forum to involve itself in or how they can ask the forum to debate that. That would appear an oversight.
20. However, for me to investigate this matter further I would need to be persuaded that Mr D has suffered an injustice because of how the forums have been set up. I am not persuaded that is the case.
21. Mr D has suggested the forums were described via local media as providing some space for discussion of local matters such as highway condition or parks and green spaces. As I have commented above I think it unfortunate there is not more in the public domain about how the forums work. For example, the extent to which they are for officers to explain Council policy and actions, for public consultation or questions. But if Mr D has specific concerns about local matters he can continue to raise these as individual queries using the single point of contact arrangement. Further, he can make a complaint if he does not consider the response from his point of contact answers his concerns.
22. I have also considered Mr D’s description of his experience of attending such a forum in October last year. I recognise he found it an unhelpful experience. But again, I am not persuaded Mr D has suffered any injustice. It seems he wanted more opportunity to debate with the Council the merits of its proposed policy towards private sector rented housing. I do not consider that is a debate the Council obliged to enter, having registered his views on the matter.
23. In summary therefore, I consider the Council could reasonably choose not to engage further in response to Mr D’s correspondence of October 2019. Clearly from what I have said above, my reasons for reaching this view differ from those put forward by the Council. But I find no fault in the general thrust of its approach, that it would not be an efficient or effective use of its resources to consider the matters raised by Mr D in more detail. Nor that it could instruct its Councillors to engage in matters of policy debate with Mr D if they did not wish to do so.

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Final decision

24. For reasons explained above I do not uphold this complaint finding no fault or else using my discretion not to continue the investigation. I have therefore completed my investigation satisfied with the Council’s actions.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman