Warrington Council (21 011 560)
Category : Other Categories > Other
Decision : Closed after initial enquiries
Decision date : 11 Jan 2022
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: We will not start an investigation into the way the Council dealt with a complaint. This is because we will not investigate complaint handling as a standalone issue.
The complaint
- Mr X complained the Council would not carry out a stage 2 investigation into his complaint. In his complaint to the Council, Mr X said its online streaming of meetings attended by councillors was a breach of legislation which prohibits political publicity.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
- We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’, which we call ‘fault’. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse effect on the person making the complaint, which we call ‘injustice’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We may decide not to start an investigation if the tests set out in our Assessment Code are not met. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)
- 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.
How I considered this complaint
- I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
- I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
- Mr X clearly feels strongly about the issue which led to his original complaint. But we only investigate complaints where the matter complained about has caused significant personal injustice. This does not apply here and so we would not investigate the original issue which meant Mr X complained to the Council.
- Mr X says his complaint to the Ombudsman is about the Council’s complaint handling. The exception at paragraph 3 therefore applies. We will not investigate complaint handling as a standalone issue if we are not going to look at the issue which led to the original complaint.
Final decision
- We will not start an investigation because we will not investigate complaint handling as a standalone issue.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman