Summary: The Ombudsman will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint that the advice the Council gave as a consultee of a local planning application was wrong. This is there is not enough personal injustice to Mrs X to warrant investigation and it is unlikely we could add to the Council’s own investigation.

The complaint

1. Mrs X complains the advice the Council gave as a consultee of a local planning application was wrong. She says the Council did not properly consider her concerns and it did not respond to her request for a review within its stated time limits. She says, as a result, the committee considering the planning application decided the application based on flawed information. She wants the Council to review its processes and to apologise to her for the distress it caused.

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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 we believe:

• the fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained, or
• the injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement, or
• it is unlikely we could add to any previous investigation by the Council.

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

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered the information provided by Mrs X in her complaint and the Council’s response to her.
4. I sent a copy of my draft decision to Mrs X. I considered her comments before making a final decision.

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What I found

Background

5. The Council is the highways authority for the area in which Mrs X lives. It was consulted on a planning application by a district council considering a planning application in its area.
6. Mrs X says she identified several errors in the Council’s report submitted for the planning application. She raised these errors with the Council and appealed under the Council’s highway advice appeal procedure.
7. She says the Council did not respond to the appeal within the 10 days stated in its appeal procedure. As a result, she says the advice could not be corrected before the date of the committee meeting to decide the planning application and the committee had incorrect information when making its decision.
8. The Council accepted many of the points Mrs X has raised though it decided that its advice to the district council would likely have been the same. The Council has said it will review the findings under its service improvement procedure.

Analysis

9. The law says the Ombudsman must consider whether any fault has caused any injustice to the person making the complaint. The Council’s advice to the district council is only part of the evidence considered by the district council’s Planning Committee deciding the planning application. It is not possible to say that any faults in that advice will have directly caused an injustice to Mrs X.
10. I recognise the time and effort Mrs X put into raising her concerns with the Council and her wish to see the Council’s highways advice role performing properly. However, I do not consider the effort Mrs X went to in following the Council’s highways advice appeals process represents a significant injustice to her.
11. The Council has already said that it will review the findings of Mrs X’s appeal under its service improvement procedure. It is unlikely that an investigation by the Ombudsman would achieve more than this.

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Final decision

12. The Ombudsman will not investigate this complaint. This is there is not enough personal injustice to Mrs X to warrant investigation and it is unlikely we could add to the Council’s own investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman