Summary: Ms X complains about the Council’s handling of her planning application. We will not investigate the complaint because an investigation is unlikely to add to that already carried out by the Council or lead to a different outcome.

The complaint

1. The complainant, Ms X, says that due to the Council’s poor handling of her planning application, she incurred costs when she had to refer to her planning agent for advice on procedural matters. She wants the money she paid to her agent to be refunded by the Council.

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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 an investigation if we decide:

• there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating, or
• any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement, or
• we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation, or
• further investigation would not lead to a different outcome. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6))

3. 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

4. I considered information provided by Ms X and the Council, including its responses to her complaint.
5. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
6. I gave Ms X the opportunity to comment on my draft decision and considered what she said.

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My assessment

7. Ms X received some inaccurate and confusing advice from the Council’s call centre about a planning application she had submitted and about the fee charged for her application. The Council apologised for the incorrect advice and explained why a fee was payable for the application. However, it declined to refund her the money she had paid to employ a private planning agent to act on her behalf.
8. We do not investigate every complaint we received and while I note Ms X was put to some time and trouble clarifying the Council’s position and making her complaint, there is insufficient evidence of fault by the Council or injustice caused to Ms X to warrant an investigation.
9. The restriction highlighted at paragraph 3 applies to fee application issues involving past events and previous applications as we would reasonably have expected Ms X to have complained about them at the time.
10. In responding to my draft decision Ms X says she did not receive advice but dogmatic statements about why her application could not be processed and that as a result she contacted a private planning agent to whom she paid a fee for dealing with the procedural requirements of her application. While I note Ms X’s costs here in using an agent instead of handling matters herself, we do not investigate every complaint we receive. We are funded by the public purse and have an obligation to use the funds allocated to us in an efficient, effective and economic manner and neither the fault nor the injustice claimed warrant a formal investigation.

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Final decision

11. We will not investigate this complaint. This is because an investigation is unlikely to add to that already carried out by the Council or lead to a different outcome.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman