Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about how the Council responded to Mr X’s complaint about a historic planning enforcement matter. Investigating this matter would be unlikely to lead to any worthwhile outcome.

The complaint

1. Mr X says the Council failed to confirm whether a letter dating from 2012 following a planning site visit formed part of an enforcement record, and whether it was considered or disclosed in later proceedings.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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 no worthwhile outcome achievable by our investigation.

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

3. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
4. We cannot investigate late complaints unless we decide there are good reasons. Late complaints are when someone takes more than 12 months to complain to us about something a council has done. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26B and 34D, as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

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

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My assessment

7. The matters Mr X complains of refer to actions of the Council in 2012 and 2016, and to its response to a Planning Inspector in 2018. His correspondence with the Council disputes the legality of its actions in 2016 and questions what it disclosed to the Planning Inspector two years later. Regardless of whether Mr X was aware of these matters at the time or has only recently discovered them, they are historic. An investigation by us of matters so far back would be unlikely to be robust due to the deletion of documents and the difficulty of interviewing those involved. Legality is also something only a court could determine.

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Final decision

8. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because doing so would be unlikely to lead to any worthwhile outcome.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman