Milton Keynes Council (24 004 681)
Category : Other Categories > Other
Decision : Closed after initial enquiries
Decision date : 23 Sep 2024
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s handling of complaints Mr X has made to it. This is because we have previously addressed earlier complaints about these matters and there is nothing new which warrants investigation.
The complaint
- Mr X complains about the Council’s handling of complaints he has made to it.
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 impact on the person making the complaint, which we call ‘injustice’. We provide a free service but must use public money carefully. We do not start or continue an investigation if we decide:
- there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating, or
- any fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained, or
- any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement, or
- we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation, or
- further investigation would not lead to a different outcome, or
- there is no worthwhile outcome achievable by our investigation.
(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))
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 has made earlier complaints to us about the Council’s communication with him and its handling of his complaints. We decided not to investigate these matters.
- Mr X has complained to us again about these or similar matters. He made a complaint in February 2024 which the Council decided to treat as feedback rather than progressing it through its complaints procedure because the issues raised by Mr X had been the subject of earlier complaint responses.
- We do not investigate every complaint we receive. We will not go back to look again at matters covered by the earlier complaints and there are no grounds which warrant investigation of any new issues.
Final decision
- We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because we have previously addressed earlier complaints about these matters and there is nothing new which warrants investigation.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman