Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Authority’s decision to suspend its pre-planning application advisory service. We have seen no evidence of fault in the Authority’s actions. Nor do we consider the complainant has suffered any significant personal injustice.

The complaint

1. The complainant, I shall call Mr J, complains about the Authority’s decision to temporarily suspend its pre-planning application advice service. He says this is discriminatory as neighbouring authorities are continuing to provide the service. And there is no reduction of Council Tax to compensate for the loss of the service and has not offered Mr J compensation.
2. Mr J also complains the Authority failed to follow its complaint process, not making it clear at each stage of the complaint process what his options were.
3. Mr J wants the Authority to resume the pre-planning application service or compensate those affected.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

4. 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:

• there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating, or
• any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement.
• (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6))

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How I considered this complaint

5. I considered information provided by the Mr J and the Authority.
6. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

7. Pre-planning advisory services are discretionary services. These are services an authority can provide but does not have to provide.
8. The Authority decided to temporarily suspend its pre-planning advice service. It says it lost a third of its planning team at the same time planning casework increased by a similar amount. It suspended the pre-application service for a few months to allow staff to focus on planning cases.
9. The Authority told Mr J that if he had any planning proposals that cannot wait until January 2022 (when the service is expected to resume); he can contact either the head of development management or director of planning who will advise him.
10. Our role is mainly to look at the way the Authority carries out its administrative functions. It is not to look at its spending priorities or its policy decisions which are a matter for the electorate rather than the Ombudsman. In this case the Authority decided to withdraw a service which it does not have to provide, for a temporary period. This is a decision it is entitled to make. That other authorities continue to provide this service is a matter for those authorities and is not evidence of discrimination or fault.
11. The Authority has offered to advise Mr J on any planning proposal if he cannot wait until the service resumes in the new year. Therefore, I do not consider that Mr J has suffered any significant personal injustice because of the Authority’s decision to suspend the service.
12. Mr J believes he should receive compensation because the Authority withdrew the service or he should get a reduced rate of council tax. I have seen no reason why the Authority should compensate Mr J for the temporary suspension of a discretionary service. Council tax is a tax on domestic property. It is not a contract with payments for specific services such as the pre-planning application advice.
13. Mr J also complains the Authority failed to follow its complaints process. He says at each stage of the complaints process it was not made clear what his rights were if he did not agree with the response.
14. Mr J submitted his complaint using an online form. This is on the same page of the Authority’s website which provides full details of the complaints process. Also, the Authority’s acknowledgement of his stage two complaint included a link to the Authority’s complaints procedure and to the Ombudsman’s website. I cannot therefore agree that Mr J was not informed of the complaints procedure.
15. Even if Mr J was unaware of the Authority’s complaints procedure, we do not consider that any injustice he may have suffered because of this, is sufficient to warrant our involvement. It is not a good use of public resources to investigate complaints about complaint procedures, where we are not dealing with the substantive issue.

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Final decision

16. We will not investigate Mr J’s complaint because we have not seen any evidence of fault in the Authority’s decision to temporarily suspend its pre-planning application service. And, as the Authority has offered to consider any planning proposal that Mr J believes cannot wait until the service resumes, I do not consider he has suffered any significant personal injustice.
17. Nor do I consider Mr J did not have details of the Authority's complaints procedure.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman