Bristol City Council (25 011 365)
Category : Other Categories > Other
Decision : Closed after initial enquiries
Decision date : 10 Sep 2025
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: We will not investigate Mr B’s complaint about how the Council is spending public money. This is because the alleged fault has not caused Mr B a personal injustice.
The complaint
- Mr B is concerned the Council has given public money to a political group and says the Council has failed to engage with his complaint about this. Mr B would like the Council to answer his complaint and either confirm or deny what he has said.
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 an investigation if we decide:
- any fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained, or
- any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement.
(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))
- This means we will normally only investigate a complaint where the complainant has suffered serious loss, harm or distress as a direct result of faults or failures by an organisation. In addition, we will not normally investigate a complaint where the complainant is using their enquiry as a way of raising a wider community campaign about something of general concern but where they have not suffered injustice.
How I considered this complaint
- I considered information provided by Mr B.
- I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
- Mr B does not live in the Council’s area and is not directly affected by the issue he complains about. This means the alleged fault by the Council has not caused him a personal injustice.
- So, we will not investigate this complaint.
Final decision
- We will not investigate Mr B’s complaint because the alleged fault has not caused him a personal injustice.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman