Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council failing to publish its 2023/24 Infrastructure Funding Statement, and failing to spend developer contributions. We cannot investigate issues affecting all or most people in the Council’s area, the complainant is not caused a significant personal injustice by the alleged fault, and an investigation is unlikely to achieve a different outcome

The complaint

1. Mrs X complained the Council failed to meet its statutory obligations as it had not published a 2023/24 Infrastructure Funding Statement (IFS), and nearly half the developer contributions it had received remained unspent.
2. Mrs X says there is a lack of transparency and honesty by public servants who are meant to serve residents, and it appears money is not being spent for the benefit of residents.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
4. We can 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. So, we do not start 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
• further investigation would not lead to a different outcome, or
• there is no worthwhile outcome achievable by our investigation.

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

5. With regard to the first and second bullet points above, we will normally only investigate a complaint where the complainant has suffered serious, personal loss, harm or distress as a direct result of faults or failures by an organisation. In addition, we will not normally investigate a complaint where the complainant is using their enquiry as a way of raising a wider community campaign about something of general concern, but where they have not suffered injustice.
6. We also cannot investigate something that affects all or most of the people in a council’s area. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(7), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

7. I considered information provided by Mrs X and the Council, which included the complaint responses and an update on the status of the issues raised in the complaint.
8. I also considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

9. I appreciate Mrs X is concerned about how developer contributions/Council money is being spent on services and infrastructure. But this is something which affects all or most people in the Council’s area. With reference to paragraph 6 above, we cannot investigate such matters.
10. And even if this restriction did not apply, I am not persuaded Mrs X is caused a specific and significant personal injustice by the delayed publication of the 2023/24 IFS.
11. Finally, in response to our enquiries, the Council has explained it was unable to appoint a new section 106 monitoring officer between September 2024 and April 2025. This meant many of the tasks and responsibilities that the section 106 monitoring officer has could not be done, including the preparation of the annual IFS 2023/24. The Council now has a section 106 monitoring officer in post, and the IFS’s for 2023/24 and 2024/25 have been published.
12. And with regard to the use of developer contributions, the Council explains it collects money on a number of development schemes, including in phases on very large schemes, over a period of time. This money is retained until such time that it has enough to provide the capital investment for which it was intended. For example, to expand a primary school will cost several million pounds, yet this money will be paid to the Council over several years from several different housing developments. It would be ineffective to spend this money in an ad hoc manner, just to avoid carrying it over to the next year. In other words, money received through a section 106 agreement does not go into a general fund for the Council to use as it wishes; rather, it must be spent on what it was secured for, or refunded.
13. An investigation by the Ombudsman is unlikely to alter the outcome outlined in paragraphs 11 and 12 above, or achieve anything further for Mrs X, so we would not pursue the complaint for this reason too.

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Final decision

14. We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because:
• she is raising issues which affect all or most people in the Council’s area,
• the alleged fault has not caused her a significant personal injustice, and
• we are unlikely to achieve a different or worthwhile outcome.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman