Scarborough Borough Council (20 007 977)
Category : Planning > Planning applications
Decision : Closed after initial enquiries
Decision date : 04 Jan 2021
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: Mr X complains about information provided by the Council in relation to a court action. We will not investigate this complaint because there is insufficient injustice caused to warrant investigation.
The complaint
- Mr X complains about information provided by the Council in relation to a court action.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
- 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)
How I considered this complaint
- I have considered the comments of the complainant and the Council and the complainant has commented on the draft decision.
What I found
- Judicial review proceedings were taken against the Council in 2019. The Council agreed to settle the matter at that point and paid costs.
- The matter was subsequently considered by the Council at a scrutiny committee. Mr X says the Committee was misled as it was stated that the Council had not lost any judicial review cases. The Council says that, by settling out of court, this was correct. They have now, however, added this case to the report.
- We cannot investigate any matter relating to the court case itself or any enforcement of the decision.
- I am not persuaded that the observations of the Council committee cause any significant personal injustice to Mr X to warrant investigation.
Final decision
- I do not intend to investigate this complaint because there is insufficient injustice to warrant investigation.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman