Summary: The Ombudsman will not investigate this complaint about an administration fee the Council charges for dealing with invalid planning applications. It is unlikely he would find fault by the Council or that the complainant has suffered any injustice.

The complaint

1. The complainant, who I refer to here as Mr B, has complained the Council charges an administration fee for dealing with a planning application it decides is invalid.

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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, for example we believe:

• it is unlikely we would find fault,
• the fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained, or
• any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

3. I have considered what Mr B said in his complaint, background information provided by the Council, information on the Council’s website and the relevant legislation.
4. Mr B commented on a draft before I made this decision.

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What I found

Legal background

5. The fees an applicant for planning permission must pay to a local planning authority are set out in the Town and Country Planning (Fees for Applications, Deemed Applications, Requests and Site Visits) (England) Regulations 2012. These state ‘Any [fee for a planning application] shall be refunded if the application is rejected as invalid.‘
6. Section 93 of Local Government Act 2003 gives a council the power to charge for discretionary services. These are services a council can provide but does not have to provide.

Analysis

7. The Council has adopted a policy of charging a fee for extra work it carries out in certain circumstances where it decides a planning application is invalid. It says this work is discretionary and so is allowed by the 2003 Act. The fee is additional to those set out in the 2012 Regulations which the Council still refunds if it decides a planning application is invalid.
8. The Council collects the additional fee by deducting it from the statutory fees refunded under the Regulations.
9. I consider there is no apparent conflict between the Council’s actions and the 2012 Regulations and it is able to charge the additional fee. We are unlikely to find fault by the Council in making the additional charge.
10. Further, Mr B has not had to pay any extra fee and so we are unlikely to find he has suffered any injustice.

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Final decision

11. I have decided we will not investigate this complaint for the reasons given in paragraphs 9 and 10.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman