Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council failing to send neighbour notification letters for a planning application. We are satisfied with the action the Council has already taken in response to the complaint.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains the Council failed to carry out the required neighbour notification for a planning application. He says affected residents were therefore deprived of the opportunity to object or seek committee scrutiny.
2. Mr X also says there was delay in issuing the Stage 2 complaint response.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. We can 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. So, we do not start an investigation if we decide:

• any fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained, or
• any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement, or
• further investigation would not lead to a different outcome, or
• we cannot achieve the outcome someone wants, or
• we are satisfied with the action the Council has already taken in response to the complaint.

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6) & (7), as amended, section 34(B))

4. And it is not a good use of public resources to investigate complaints about complaint procedures, if we are unable to deal with the substantive issue.

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How I considered this complaint

5. I considered:
• information provided by Mr X.
• information about the planning application, as available on the Council’s website.
• information about the Planning Committee determination process, as available on the Council’s website.
• the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

6. The Ombudsman is not an appeal body. This means we do not take a second look at a decision to decide if it was wrong. Instead, we look at whether there was fault in how the Council made its decision, and we consider if any fault identified is likely to have affected the planning outcome or caused the complainant a significant injustice.
7. The Council has accepted it failed to send notification letters to residents and has offered Mr X £250 in recognition of the time and trouble he spent on pursuing his complaint. It has also discussed the matter with relevant officers so there is clarity on completing the neighbour notification process in the future.
8. I am satisfied this was a reasonable way to address the acknowledged fault, so we will not start an investigation. In reaching this view, I am mindful that Mr X was still able to object to the application, and the concerns raised are summarised and taken into account in the officer report. The Council was entitled to reach a professional judgement on whether the proposal was acceptable, even if Mr X disagrees with the conclusion it reached. It was also open to Mr X to contact his ward councillor if he wanted the application to be heard by the Planning Committee, and I have seen nothing which persuades me the application is likely to have met the committee determination threshold even if the notification process had been followed properly.
9. The Council has also apologised for the delay in issuing its Stage 2 complaint response. Again, I consider this to be a reasonable way to address this part of the complaint, so we will not pursue it further.

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Final decision

10. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because we are satisfied with the action the Council has already taken to address the acknowledged faults.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman