Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about an email sent by the Council that refers to him. This is because there is no evidence of a significant injustice.

The complaint

1. Mr X objects to an email sent by the Council advising staff not to engage with him and to call the Police if they feel threatened.
2. Mr X is unhappy the Council’s response to his complaint has not disclosed information that he requested, and he says his queries have not been answered.

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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 fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained.
• there is another body better placed to consider this complaint.

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

4. We will not usually investigate complaint handling if we are not investigating the rest of the complaint. This is because there is not usually enough injustice to justify us doing so. We collect information about particularly poor complaint handling practice and report this back to organisations. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), section 34B(8))

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How I considered this complaint

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

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My assessment

6. The Council has investigated Mr X’s complaint. The Council says it has relied on confidential information provided by a third party which could not be shared with Mr X. It says it did not describe Mr X as a threat. It said it had written that people can call the Police if they felt threatened. Overall, the Council found its actions to be justified and proportionate.
7. We will not investigate this complaint because there is insufficient evidence of a significant personal injustice to warrant the Ombudsman's involvement.
8. While I appreciate Mr X disagrees with the Council's actions and its handling of his complaint, there is no evidence of any injustice arising such as any restriction or service sanction placed on him. The Council has completed its complaints process and provided explanations to Mr X albeit he does not consider all his queries were addressed in sufficient detail.
9. In addition, the alleged failure by the Council to disclose information is a matter for the Information Commissioner's Office as the national regulator for information rights issues. I note Mr X says he is already pursuing this. So, we will not investigate the alleged failure to respond to Mr X’s requests for information as the Information Commissioner is better placed.
10. Where we are not investigating the core complaint we will not investigate the adequacy of the complaint handling process on its own. This is because there is not enough evidence of a separate injustice.

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Final decision

11. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because there is no evidence of a significant injustice.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman