Summary: We cannot investigate Mr X’s complaint about the Council’s handling of his planning application and its decision to refuse planning permission. This is because Mr X has appealed against the Council’s decision. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about the Council’s advice because there is not enough evidence of fault and the advice did not cause Mr X significant injustice.

The complaint

1. The complainant, Mr X, complains the Council provided him with inaccurate information about development he had carried out at his property and about applying for planning permission for it. He also complains the Council did not properly respond to him about his application before making a decision to refuse it. He says the Council has treated him like a criminal and has denied him the opportunity to provide a safe environment for his children.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We 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. We do not start or continue an investigation if we decide:

• there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating, or
• any fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained, or
• any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement, or
• we cannot achieve the outcome someone wants, or
• there is no worthwhile outcome achievable by our investigation.

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

3. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate. The law says we cannot normally investigate a complaint when someone can appeal to a government minister. We may decide to investigate if we consider it would be unreasonable to expect the person to appeal but cannot investigate if the person has already appealed. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(6)(b), as amended)
4. The Planning Inspector acts on behalf of the responsible Government minister. The Planning Inspector considers appeals about decisions to refuse planning permission.

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How I considered this complaint

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

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My assessment

7. We cannot investigate any complaint about the way the Council handled Mr X’s planning application or its decision to refuse planning permission. This is because Mr X has appealed against the Council’s decision to the Planning Inspectorate.
8. I appreciate Mr X believes the Council wrongly advised him about applying for planning permission but I have not seen enough evidence of fault on this point to warrant further investigation. The Council gave Mr X advice on applying to retain development he had carried out without planning permission and it is not for us to question this advice.
9. Mr X suggests the Council was wrong to advise him to limit his application to the development he had already carried out but this was the simplest way to determine whether what he had done, which amounted to a breach of planning control, was acceptable. The Council gave Mr X no guarantee his application would be successful and there is no suggestion whatsoever that applying for further development would have altered the outcome of his application. We could not therefore say the advice caused him significant injustice as including further elements in the application would, more likely than not, have simply resulted in refusal of the wider scheme.
10. While Mr X is concerned about antisocial behaviour and health and safety issues these relate to the Council’s decision to refuse his application and we cannot investigate this further for the reasons set out above.
11. Mr X also says the Council failed to provide details of the Ombudsman to him but evidence provided by the Council shows this is not correct. The Council sent Mr X a link to its website on 9 March 2023 which contained its complaints policy and this gave details of our service. But Mr X’s response the following day confirmed he had submitted an appeal to the Planning Inspectorate. Mr X has also not suffered any injustice from this issue as the Planning Inspectorate was the appropriate body to consider his challenge to the Council’s decision and he has made this complaint to us, which we have considered.

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Final decision

12. We will not investigate this complaint. This is because we cannot look at the Council’s handling of Mr X’s planning application or its decision to refuse his proposal and there is not enough evidence of fault by the Council or to show its actions caused Mr X significant injustice.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman