London Borough of Enfield (22 006 801)
Category : Planning > Enforcement
Decision : Closed after initial enquiries
Decision date : 02 Oct 2022
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint about the Council’s handling of a planning enforcement matter. This is because the Council’s actions did not cause Mrs X significant injustice.
The complaint
- The complainant, Mrs X, complains the Council failed to respond to her concerns about a possible breach of planning control by her neighbour. She also complains the Council failed to respond to her complaint.
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 effect on the person making the complaint, which we call ‘injustice’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We may decide not to start an investigation if the tests set out in our Assessment Code are not met. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)
How I considered this complaint
- I considered information provided by Mrs X and the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
- We do not investigate all the complaints we receive. In deciding whether to investigate we need to consider various tests. These include the alleged injustice to the person complaining. We only investigate the most serious complaints.
- I understand Mrs X is unhappy the Council failed to investigate and respond to her concerns about her neighbour’s development but the development she complains about does not cause her significant injustice. She has clearly spent some time and trouble to try to contact the officer to discuss the matter further but this in itself is not significant enough to pursue.
- Mrs X is also unhappy with the way the Council dealt with her complaint. But it is not a good use of public resources to look at the Council’s complaints handling if we are not going to look at the substantive issue complained about. We will not therefore investigate this issue separately.
Final decision
- We will not investigate this complaint. This is because the injustice Mrs X claims is not significant enough to warrant investigation.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman