Summary: We will not investigate the Council’s response to Mr X’s complaint concerning the conduct of council officers. This is because there is no evidence of a significant injustice to justify our involvement. And there is another body better placed to consider the complaint about deletion of data.

The complaint

1. In short, Mr X says the Council has not investigated his complaint about officer conduct properly. He says he has been caused significant distress, and he wants the Ombudsman to investigate.
2. The complainant also objects to the Council’s request that he delete data relating to his complaint and to confirm the deletion in writing.

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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:

• any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement.
• there is another body better placed to consider this complaint.

(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 which includes the Council’s complaints response.
5. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

6. Mr X complains about what happened when an officer rang him in error while the officer was holding a conversation with another officer. Mr X says he heard an officer effectively making a threat of violence when they said they wished to ‘grab hold of’ a foster carer.
7. Mr X says the Council has not investigated his complaint properly and did not contact him to ‘take a statement’ before sending him its response. He says this breaches the Ombudsman’s guidance on good complaint handling.
8. Mr X also objects to the Council’s request that he deletes complaint data held in his email account.
9. The Council has investigated Mr X’s complaint. It admits Mr X was connected to a private telephone conversation for approximately 1 minute 50 seconds, during which he may have heard personal data not relating to him. It says without firm evidence it cannot substantiate what was said but it has apologised to him.
10. The Council says it has interviewed the officers concerned who have denied making threats of violence. Overall, it concludes this was an accidental breach of data and lessons have been learnt. It says the officer involved has been advised to keep their telephone locked to prevent this happening again.
11. The Council has told Mr X the complaint information is confidential and must not be shared, warning that doing so could breach data protection law. It says it will no longer correspond via the complainant’s alumni email address, as it is controlled by another organisation, and invites provision of a private alternative email.
12. We will not investigate. The Council has already accepted fault for the telephone incident and provided a remedy in the form of an apology. It has explained what happened and taken steps to address the issue. Given this, there is no evidence of an outstanding injustice to justify our involvement.
13. I should also add there is no requirement under the Ombudsman’s complaints handling guidance for the Council to contact Mr X, to ‘take a statement’, before sending a complaints response, provided it is clear on the complaint matters under consideration.
14. With respect to the complaint element connected to the request to delete complaint data, Mr X has already advised us that he has referred the request to delete date to the Information Commission. As the regulator for information rights, this is the most suitable body to consider this aspect of his complaint and we will not investigate.

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Final decision

15. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint as there is no evidence of a significant injustice to justify our involvement. And there is another body better placed to consider the complaint about the request to delete data.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman