Summary: Mr X complains about the way the Council responded to his complaints and correspondence about a grant of outline planning permission. We will not investigate this complaint because the Council’s actions have not caused Mr X or other local residents significant enough injustice to warrant our involvement.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains about the way the Council responded to his complaints and correspondence about a grant of outline planning permission and further applications the Council still considering.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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)
3. The Ombudsman investigates 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 may decide not to continue with an investigation if we decide:

• any fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained, or
• any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement, or
• there is another body better placed to consider part of this complaint.

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

4. We will not investigate the way a council handles complaints and correspondence about a matter if we are not investigating the matters in the complaints.
5. The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) considers complaints about freedom of information. Its decision notices may be appealed to the First Tier Tribunal (Information Rights). So where we receive complaints about freedom of information, we normally consider it reasonable to expect the person to refer the matter to the Information Commissioner.

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How I considered this complaint

6. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council, the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code, and the complainant’s comments on a draft decision.

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My assessment

7. Mr X complains about the way the Council has responded to his complaints and correspondence about the grant of outline planning permission for a development near his home in 2016.
8. Mr X and others have known about the matter for well over twelve months, so this complaint is late. It is also relevant we have already considered and decided in a previous investigation the way the Council handled the planning application. We do not generally entertain repeated complaints about the same matters.
9. However, even if this was a recent matter or the complaint was in time, the Council’s grant of outline permission in 2016 does not mean development can proceed. All the details of the proposal apart from access to the site were ‘reserved’, which means they must be the subject of further applications to the Council. Conditions on the outline permission mean no development can proceed until the Council has approved all the reserved matters and detailed plans.
10. The Council has received and is considering applications for the reserved matters and other details. Mr X and others have the opportunity to comment on the details and the Council will consider their comments when deciding whether any of the detailed proposals will affect them enough to justify refusal, or whether to seek measures to make the proposals acceptable in planning terms.
11. It will be open to Mr X and others to complain again, first to the Council and then to us, about any injustice they might claim in due course once the Council has issued planning permission which is capable of implementation. Without that we cannot say the Council has made any decision which demonstrably causes injustice to Mr X or others. We cannot pre-empt something which may or may not happen.
12. I recognise Mr X is unhappy with the Council’s responses to his complaints and correspondence about the matter, but we cannot justify using public money to investigate those procedures for their own sake. The Council is not required to discuss or negotiate aspects of the planning applications with Mr X or other third parties. It must only to provide an opportunity to comment on the development proposals, and take any comments into account when making its decision to grant or refuse permission.
13. If Mr X requires information or documents from the Council in connection with the planning matter he can approach the Information Commissioner’s Office to consider any refusal or failure by the Council to provide them.

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Final decision

14. We will not investigate this complaint because the matter at the heart of it has not caused significant injustice to Mr X or others, the way the Council handled Mr X’s complaints and correspondence has not caused him significant separate injustice to warrant our involvement, and the ICO is best placed to consider complaints about any failure to provide information.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman