Summary: We cannot and will not investigate a residents’ association’s complaint about the accuracy of Planning Committee minutes. This is because the Residents’ Association took legal action against the Council regarding a planning application it approved in the Association’s area. And the injustice its members have suffered because of other planning applications is not significant enough to justify our involvement.

The complaint

1. Mr Q is a member of a residents’ association (the Association). He complained on behalf of the Association about the accuracy of minutes of Cambridge City Council’s Planning Committee meetings. He said inaccurate recording led to officers misrepresenting material factors to Committee Members who then made flawed decisions.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
3. We cannot investigate a complaint if someone has started court action about the matter. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(6)(c), as amended)
4. We may decide not to start or continue with an investigation if we believe:

• the fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained, or
• the injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement.

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

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How I considered this complaint

5. I considered the information Mr Q provided. I considered the information the Council provided. I considered Mr Q’s comments on a draft of this decision.

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What I found

Background

6. The Council has introduced an adjourned decision protocol (ADP) for its Planning Committee (the Committee). It can be used when Committee Members are considering making a decision on a planning application which is contrary to officers’ advice. The Committee adjourns making its decision on the application so officers can prepare a further report giving relevant additional advice. The Committee then resumes its consideration of the application at a later meeting. Only those Members who attended the original Committee meeting may take part in the resumed debate.

What happened

7. In June 2019 the Committee considered a planning application for a hotel in the Association’s area. As Members were considering refusing the application against officers’ advice, they used the ADP and adjourned their decision. Members considered the application again at the Committee’s September meeting. It approved the application. The Association later started judicial review proceedings challenging the Council’s decision to approve the application.
8. Mr Q attended both Committee meetings. He said the June minutes did not include a Member’s comments about overdevelopment. He said this would have been a reason for refusing the application. Mr Q is also concerned that when this and other inaccuracies were drawn to Members’ attention at the September meeting, they refused to amend the minutes. He believes Members would not remember unrecorded comments (including those about overdevelopment) several months after they were made. Mr Q thinks the inaccurate minutes led to the Committee making a flawed decision.
9. Mr Q also complained about the accuracy of the minutes of the January 2020 Committee. He did not attend that meeting. However, Mr Q said this illustrated the Council’s practice of failing to properly minute discussions. He does not think Members can be expected to have complete recall of a discussion that might have happened months previously. Mr Q said the Council’s failure to properly minute - and therefore jog Members’ memories - was endemic and caused many problems.

Assessment

10. We cannot and will not investigate this complaint.
11. Mr Q attended the June and September 2019 Committee meetings and so would know what was discussed. Only those Members who attended the June meeting were permitted to take part in the discussion in the September meeting. Mr Q is alleging inaccurate minutes led to a flawed decision because Members would have been unable to remember their discussion in June. However, the RA took judicial review proceedings challenging the Council’s decision to approve the planning application. So, for this reason, we cannot investigate the Council’s handling of this particular application, including the accuracy of the minutes.
12. Mr Q did not attend the January 2020 Committee meeting but has used this to illustrate his view that the Council’s ADP system and inaccurate minutes result in many flawed decisions. The Association’s members are not directly affected by these other planning applications. So they have suffered little, if any, injustice because of them. It is open to residents who are affected by planning applications to pursue the matter themselves.
13. So, in summary, we cannot investigate part of this complaint because the Association has taken legal action against the Council regarding its September 2019 planning decision. And we will not investigate the Council’s handling of other planning applications because the injustice the Association’s members have suffered is not significant enough to justify our involvement.

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Final decision

14. We cannot and will not investigate this complaint for the reasons given in the Assessment.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman