Sefton Metropolitan Borough Council (21 008 492)

Category : Transport and highways > Other

Decision : Closed after initial enquiries

Decision date : 24 Oct 2021

The Ombudsman's final decision:

Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s investigation of a complaint concerning an officer’s behaviour. This is because the complainant has not suffered injustice as a result of fault by the Council.

The complaint

  1. The complainant, who I refer to as Mr X, complains about the behaviour of a Council officer towards a member of his work team and the Council’s investigation about it. He says he wants the officer concerned to attend an anger management training course.

Back to top

The Ombudsman’s role and powers

  1. 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 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 could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation, or
  • further investigation would not lead to a different outcome, or
  • we cannot achieve the outcome someone wants. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6))

Back to top

How I considered this complaint

  1. I considered information provided by Mr X, including the Council’s responses to his complaint.
  2. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

Back to top

My assessment

  1. Mr X complained to the Council about an officer acting aggressively when addressing a member of his work team. The Council investigated the matter but did not uphold the complaint.
  2. Mr X has complained about what happened to a member of his staff. However, Mr X has not been caused any injustice sufficient to warrant an investigation and nor is there evidence of fault by the Council which warrants investigation. Moreover, the outcome sought to the complaint is not one we would seek from a council.
  3. Our decision not to investigate the matter would be the same even if Mr X’s staff member made his own complaint to us or asked Mr X to act on his behalf.

Back to top

Final decision

  1. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because Mr X has not suffered injustice as a result of fault by the Council.

Back to top

Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

Print this page

LGO logogram

Review your privacy settings

Required cookies

These cookies enable the website to function properly. You can only disable these by changing your browser preferences, but this will affect how the website performs.

View required cookies

Analytical cookies

Google Analytics cookies help us improve the performance of the website by understanding how visitors use the site.
We recommend you set these 'ON'.

View analytical cookies

In using Google Analytics, we do not collect or store personal information that could identify you (for example your name or address). We do not allow Google to use or share our analytics data. Google has developed a tool to help you opt out of Google Analytics cookies.

Privacy settings