Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about the Council’s refusal to investigate his complaint at stage two of its complaints procedure. There is not enough evidence of fault by the Council and Mr X’s claimed injustice is not significant enough to warrant our involvement.

The complaint

1. Mr X complained the Council refused to investigate his complaint about its trading standards team at stage two of its complaints procedure.
2. Mr X said this caused him stress and led him to believe the Council’s complaints procedures are ineffective.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

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:

• there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating, or
• any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement.

(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 and the Council.
5. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

6. Mr X complained to the Council in September 2025 about how its trading standards team considered his reports about a business.
7. The Council responded to Mr X at stage one of its complaints procedure. Mr X remained dissatisfied and asked the Council to escalate the complaint to stage two.
8. The Council refused Mr X’s request for a stage two investigation. It wrote to him and explained the circumstances under which its procedure allows for a stage two investigation but explained why it considered Mr X’s request had not met these criteria.
9. The available evidence suggests the Council’s decision to refuse the stage two was made in line with its published complaints policy. We would therefore be unlikely to find fault in its decision-making.
10. In any case, our role is to consider complaints where the person bringing the complaint has suffered significant personal injustice as a direct result of the actions or inactions of the organisation. 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.
11. There is no evidence to suggest Mr X has suffered a significant injustice which would meet the threshold for our involvement here.
12. For the reasons set out in paragraphs 9 and 11, we will not investigate.

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Final decision

13. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because there is not enough evidence of fault by the Council and the claimed injustice is not significant enough to warrant our involvement.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman