Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about comments about a planning application published on the Council’s website. This is because it is unlikely an investigation would add to the Council’s response or achieve anything more for the complainants. The complainants have also not suffered any significant injustice.

The complaint

1. Mr and Mrs X have complained about comments published on the Council’s website in response to their planning application. They say the comments were defamatory and should have been removed. Mr and Mrs X have also complained about how the Council dealt with their complaint and say there was a delay before it sent a letter to confirm a fence they had erected was permitted development.

Back to top

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 injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement, or
• we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation, 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))

Back to top

How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided by Mr and Mrs X and the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

Back to top

My assessment

4. Mr and Mrs X say comments made by their neighbour in response to their planning application were defamatory. They say the Council failed to follow its own procedures for publishing comments by allowing the objection to remain on its website.
5. The Council initially refused Mr and Mrs X’s request to remove the objection as it said it did not consider the comments defamatory and they did not include any sensitive or personal information. Mr and Mrs X disagree, but the Council was entitled to decide the comments should remain on its website and it explained its reason for not initially removing the information. It also published Mr and Mrs X’s response to the comments and the case officer addressed the concerns they raised about their neighbour’s objection in their report. Furthermore, the objection has since been redacted to remove the comments Mr and Mrs X have complained about. Therefore, I consider it unlikely an investigation could achieve anything more for Mr and Mrs X.
6. Mr and Mrs X have also complained the Council took too long to write to them to confirm the fence they had erected was permitted development. However, I do not consider Mr and Mrs X have been caused any significant injustice because of any delays. They had already been told by the enforcement officer the work was permitted development, so they were aware the fence was not unauthorised or at risk of enforcement action.
7. Mr and Mrs X have complained about the Council’s complaint handling. However, where the Ombudsman has decided not to investigate the substantive issues complained about, we will not usually use public resources to consider more minor matters such as complaint handling.

Back to top

Final decision

8. We will not investigate Mr and Mrs X’s complaint because it is unlikely we could add to the Council’s response or achieve any more for Mr and Mrs X by investigating their complaint. Mr and Mrs X have also not suffered any significant injustice.

Back to top

Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman