Bristol City Council (24 011 817)

Category : Other Categories > Other

Decision : Closed after initial enquiries

Decision date : 21 Oct 2024

The Ombudsman's final decision:

Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s handling of a complaint about its response to a subject access request as the level of injustice caused to the complainant from this is not sufficient to justify our involvement.

The complaint

  1. Ms X complained to the Council about delay in it providing a response to a subject access request (SAR) she had made to it. Ms X complains the Council has not responded to this complaint and this has caused her frustration and to lose confidence in the Council’s complaint handling ability.

Back to top

The Ombudsman’s role and powers

  1. 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)
  2. 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 any fault has not caused significant injustice to the person who complained (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

Back to top

How I considered this complaint

  1. I considered information provided by the complainant.
  2. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

Back to top

My assessment

  1. The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) is the UK’s independent regulator on data protection matters and was the appropriate body to deal with Ms X’s concerns about how the Council handled her SAR request.
  2. I recognise that the Council has complied now with that request and that Ms X’s outstanding concern is regarding its handling of her complaint about delay, but, in isolation, this does not represent a level of injustice that would justify our further involvement. We have limited resources and must direct them to the most serious cases, in the public interest.

Back to top

Final decision

  1. We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint because the alleged Council fault has not caused her a level of injustice that would justify our further involvement.

Back to top

Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

Print this page

LGO logogram

Review your privacy settings

Required cookies

These cookies enable the website to function properly. You can only disable these by changing your browser preferences, but this will affect how the website performs.

View required cookies

Analytical cookies

Google Analytics cookies help us improve the performance of the website by understanding how visitors use the site.
We recommend you set these 'ON'.

View analytical cookies

In using Google Analytics, we do not collect or store personal information that could identify you (for example your name or address). We do not allow Google to use or share our analytics data. Google has developed a tool to help you opt out of Google Analytics cookies.

Privacy settings