Summary: Mr X complains that the Council has offered poor pre-planning application advice to his clients. The Ombudsman will not investigate this complaint because there is insufficient injustice to warrant investigation as the effect upon him is unclear and speculative.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains that the Council has offered poor pre-planning application advice to his clients.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word ‘fault’ to refer to these. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint. I refer to this as ‘injustice’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We may decide not to start or continue with an investigation if we believe:

• it is unlikely we would find fault, or
• 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)

3. The law says we cannot normally investigate a complaint when someone can appeal to a government minister. However, we may decide to investigate if we consider it would be unreasonable to expect the person to appeal. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(6)(b))
4. The Planning Inspector acts on behalf of the responsible Government minister. The Planning Inspector considers appeals about:

• delay – usually over eight weeks – by an authority in deciding an application for planning permission
• a decision to refuse planning permission
• conditions placed on planning permission
• a planning enforcement notice.

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How I considered this complaint

5. I have considered the complainant's comments and the Council's comments and Mr X has commented on the draft decision.

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What I found

6. Mr X says that he has represented a number of planning applicants with their planning applications and he says that the pre-planning application advice has been poor.
7. Mr X has not provided consent for him to act on behalf of his clients and so we will only consider the effect upon him of the alleged maladministration. The Council says that he was not the agent or architect of any of the planning applications he has referred to in his complaints.
8. Mr X says that his business partner was the named agent on the planning applications.
9. Nevertheless, any planning application refusal can be appealed to a Planning Inspector. The appeal can consider the issues raised in the pre planning application advice.
10. Further, the injustice claimed from poor pre planning application advice would be to the applicant who has paid the fee and suffers any consequence of a planning refusal. Mr X would have received his fee as agent in any event. I see no reason why the applicant in this case (and others) could not make a complaint in their own right.

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Final decision

11. The Ombudsman will not investigate this complaint. This is because there is insufficient injustice caused to warrant investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman