Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about the Council’s decision to restrict his contact in October 2023. An investigation would not lead to a worthwhile outcome or achieve what Mr X wants.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains about the Council’s decision to restrict his contact in October 2023. He says the decision was unjustified, caused distress and has restricted him from raising legitimate complaints. He wants the Council to apologise and remove the contact restrictions.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

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 further investigation would not lead to a different outcome.

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

3. 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:

• we cannot achieve the outcome someone wants, or
• there is no worthwhile outcome achievable by our investigation.

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

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How I considered this complaint

4. I considered information provided by the complainant.
5. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

6. In its October 2023 letter to Mr X, the Council explained why it had decided to restrict his contact. It said:
• it considered he was making excessive demands on the time and resources of staff.
• it had provided its final responses on the issues he had raised and would not respond further.
• it had decided to restrict his communications to a single point of contact and would only respond to one email per week.
• the restrictions would apply for six months and would be reviewed in April 2024.
7. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint as there is no worthwhile outcome we could achieve. The decision Mr X complains about was made over a year ago and the contact restrictions were due for review in April 2024. The October 2023 decision has since been superseded by a new decision to either maintain or remove the contact restrictions. There is no worthwhile outcome we could achieve by investigating this decision and we could not achieve what Mr X wants.
8. If Mr X is unhappy with the outcome of the April 2024 review or if this review has not taken place, this is a new matter which Mr X can raise with the Council as a new complaint. We must give councils an opportunity to consider a complaint before we will investigate, so we cannot consider a complaint about any decision since October 2023 until Mr X has first complained to the Council.

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Final decision

9. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because an investigation would not lead to a worthwhile outcome or achieve what Mr X wants.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman