Summary: Ms X complains about how the Council dealt with her complaint that a Council officer shared information she had asked to be kept private. Ms X has experienced delay and difficulties in obtaining responses. The Ombudsman will not investigate the Council’s handling of Ms X’s complaint as a stand-alone matter as Ms X is not caused significant injustice from this.

The complaint

1. Ms X complains about how the Council dealt with her complaint that a Council officer shared information she had asked to be kept private.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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 (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)
3. 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)
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 have considered what Ms X said in her complaint and background information the Council sent to me. I have considered the comments Ms X made in response to my draft decision on the complaint.

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What I found

6. Ms X had concerns about how a care provider was charging for its services; had collated information about this and sent it to a Council officer to consider. Ms X asked the Council officer not to share the information with the care provider. Ms X had grounds to believe the information was shared and made a complaint to the Council about this in August 2019.
7. Ms X complains the Council took nearly 6 months to respond to her complaint and that the response failed to properly address her concerns.
8. Ms X then made a further complaint to the Council that two directors of service had failed to ensure her first complaint was properly dealt with.
9. Ms X says the Council has not responded to this complaint and wants the Ombudsman to investigate.

Assessment

10. Ms X’s original complaint to the Council relates to a data breach. We do not normally deal with such complaints as we consider they are best dealt with by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). It is the UK’s independent body set up to investigate such matters.
11. As we would not investigate the substantive issue, it is not a good use of our resources to investigate how the Council dealt with a complaint about it. Additionally, from our perspective, the injustice caused to Ms X from the Council’s complaint handling alone, is not sufficient to warrant our involvement.
12. For these reasons, we will not investigate.

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Final decision

13. My decision is that the Ombudsman will not investigate the Council’s handling of Ms X’s complaint as a stand-alone matter as it is not a good use of his resources, given that the substantive matter is for the ICO. Ms X is also not caused a level of injustice from her complaint that would warrant the Ombudsman’s involvement.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman