Summary: The Ombudsman will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about restrictions the Council imposed on questions he wished to ask at a Council meeting. This is because it is unlikely the Ombudsman will find fault by the Council; Mr X is not caused a significant injustice from his complaint and the Ombudsman cannot achieve the outcome Mr X seeks.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains it was unconstitutional for the Mayor and Committee Services to impose restrictions on a question he wished to ask at a Council meeting. Mr X says he had to amend the wording of his question, which was to the detriment of it.

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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 it is unlikely we would find fault, or the injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement, or we cannot achieve the outcome someone wants (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)
3. 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)

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How I considered this complaint

4. I have considered what Mr X said in his complaint and the comments he made in response to my draft findings on it.

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What I found

5. Mr X complains it was unconstitutional for the Mayor and Committee Services to impose restrictions on a question he wished to ask at a Council meeting. Mr X complains he was asked to avoid ‘opening statements’ and to limit his question to a ‘single, short statement’. Mr X believes this is censorship and that his question suffered for having to amend the wording of it.
6. Mr X considers the Council should cease, what he considers to be, unconstitutional restrictions on public questions and that if time constraints are the determining factor, that a limit on the number of words can be imposed, rather than how a question is asked.
7. In its complaint responses to Mr X, the Council says he was not prevented from asking his questions but was asked not to preface them with statements. It says Rule 33.4 of its Council Procedure Rules allows the Mayor to make decisions on the application of the Council’s rules, in this case, in respect of members of the public asking questions at Council meetings. In the Council’s view, given time constraints, it was not unreasonable, nor unconstitutional, for the Mayor to request no opening statements to be made.
8. The Council goes on to say that Rule19, in its view, infers that the intention is for questions to be asked, not for speeches to be made or for statements in support of questions to be given. In light of this, the Council considers it is appropriate for Committee Services to have asked Mr X to frame his questions in a way to support the management of Council meetings.
9. Mr X remains unhappy with the Council’s response and continues to feel it is censorship to demand questions be framed in a single sentence. Mr X questions the Council’s interpretation of what an ‘opening statement’ is and also feels the Mayor is making up rules rather than applying them.

Analysis

10. The Council has considered Mr X’s complaint and explained its position. We can only criticise the Council if there is evidence of fault in the way it considered Mr X’s complaint. I have not seen such evidence. That Mr X disagrees with the Council and questions its interpretation does not constitute fault or provide us with grounds to investigate.
11. Mr X remains unhappy he was asked to amend his questions, but this does not represent a level of injustice that would warrant our involvement.
12. We cannot require the Council to make changes to its constitution and so we cannot achieve the outcome Mr X seeks.
13. For these reasons, we will not investigate.

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Final decision

14. My decision is that the Ombudsman will not investigate this complaint. This is because it is unlikely the Council is at fault; Mr X is not significantly affected and the Ombudsman cannot achieve the outcome Mr X seeks.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman