Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s failure to respond to X’s complaint. This is because there is no significant injustice and there is no worthwhile outcome achievable. Additionally, there is another body better placed to consider a complaint about data rights.

The complaint

1. X complains the Council is at fault because it refused to respond to the issues they raised with it about housing related matters and information requests, including a request to carry out a building safety check.
2. X says the Council did not properly follow the complaint handling code. X raised this complaint with us because they believe residents may be at risk of harm due to the underlying matters.

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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, or

• there is another body better placed to consider this complaint, or
• there is no worthwhile outcome achievable by our investigation.

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

4. 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)

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How I considered this complaint

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

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My assessment

6. X complained to us because the Council had refused to deal with their complaint. X provided us with information about their complaint. The complaint X raised relates to housing matters concerning properties owned by a registered social landlord and its tenants.
7. The law does not allow us to consider complaints about social landlords. Because we cannot consider the substantive complaint matters, there is no worthwhile outcome we could achieve by investigating a complaint about alleged complaint handling faults related to those matters. Therefore, I will not investigate.
8. Part of X’s complaint relates to an agreement to carry out a building safety inspection. We will not normally investigate a complaint unless there is good reason to believe that the complainant has suffered significant personal injustice as a direct result of the actions or inactions of the Council. To satisfy this threshold, we would need to be satisfied that a person has suffered serious loss, or harm, or distress directly because of something the Council did or did not do.
9. Noting that X is not a tenant of the properties they are concerned about, the Council’s lack of response has not caused them significant injustice and so I will not investigate this part of X’s complaint.
10. Finally, nor will I consider a complaint about how the Council handled X’s Freedom of Information request. The Information Commissioner is a body better placed to consider such a complaint.

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Final decision

11. We will not investigate X’s complaint because there is no significant injustice and no worthwhile outcome achievable. There is another body better placed to consider complaints about information requests.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman