Summary: The Ombudsman will not investigate Mr Y’s complaints about the Council’s approach to dealing with his client Mr X. We must look at the specific events set out in the complaint and most of these are too late for investigation. While Mr X raises two more recent concerns it is unlikely investigation into these issues would achieve any worthwhile outcome.

The complaint

1. The complainant, Mr Y, complains the Council has adopted and maintains a deliberately obstructive, oppressive and unreasonable hostile attitude towards his client Mr X. He says this impacts on Mr X’s business as a property developer and has caused him financial loss.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word ‘fault’ to refer to these. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint. I refer to this as ‘injustice’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We may decide not to start or continue with an investigation if we believe:

• it is unlikely we would find fault, or
• the fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained, or
• the injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement, or
• it is unlikely we could add to any previous investigation by the Council, or
• it is unlikely further investigation will lead to a different outcome, or
• we cannot achieve the outcome someone wants.

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

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)
5. The law says we cannot normally investigate a complaint when someone can appeal to a government minister. However, we may decide to investigate if we consider it would be unreasonable to expect the person to appeal. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(6)(b))
6. The Planning Inspector acts on behalf of the responsible Government minister. The Planning Inspector considers appeals about:

• delay – usually over eight weeks – by an authority in deciding an application for planning permission
• a decision to refuse planning permission
• conditions placed on planning permission
• a planning enforcement notice.

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How I considered this complaint

7. I reviewed the information provided by Mr Y including the details of the complaint and the Council’s responses. I shared my draft decision with Mr Y and considered his comments.

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What I found

8. Mr Y complains the Council has unfairly treated Mr X for a period of over 20 years. His complaint set out 15 examples of such treatment but stated it was about the Council’s overall conduct towards Mr X, rather than about specific incidents.
9. The Council’s response to Mr Y explained that 13 of the 15 examples given related to actions which took place more than 12 months before the complaint, and were not therefore eligible for consideration under its complaints procedure. It responded to points 14 and 15 by confirming it had met with Mr X to assist with channels of communication and to resolve issues in person.
10. The Ombudsman will not investigate this complaint. The Ombudsman is not a regulator and it is not our role to undertake an audit of the Council’s interactions with Mr X. Our role is to remedy injustice caused by fault in relation to specific events. This is not the way Mr Y would like the issue to be considered but this is how the Ombudsman works.
11. The Council has confirmed points 1-13 of Mr Y’s complaint relate to events which took place more than 12 months before the complaint was raised; they are therefore late. Several of these issues also concern matters which carried a right of appeal to the Planning Inspectorate or did not cause Mr X significant injustice. I have seen no good reasons to exercise our discretion to investigate these issues.
12. While points 14 and 15 are more recent we will not investigate these issues. The Council confirms there is significant overlap with the late complaints and refers to several discussions between the planning department and Mr X. Mr X does not feel the discussions have been useful or significant but it is not for us to say the Council should have advised Mr X differently. He and/or his agent or representative were also free to make their own notes of these meetings in order to keep a record of what was discussed.
13. Ultimately it is unlikely we could add to the Council’s response to these issues or that we would recommend a remedy for them. Mr X’s contact with the Council concerns matters of planning and development and if he thinks the Council has not properly handled his applications, or that it has issued enforcement notices when it should not have, he may appeal to the Planning Inspectorate.
14. If Mr X has concerns about the service the Council provides to him in the future he should raise these as specific complaints with the Council and refer the matter to us within 12 months of the actions complained about. I would however explain that where service issues are claimed to impact on a council’s decision we would normally expect the applicant to appeal, and that where an applicant has appealed we cannot separately investigate complaints about the Council’s handling of an application.
15. Mr Y is also unhappy with the way the Council has dealt with his 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.

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Final decision

16. The Ombudsman will not investigate this complaint. This is because most of the issues raised are late and it is unlikely investigation into Mr X’s more recent complaints would achieve any worthwhile outcome for him.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman