Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint that a council officer refused to communicate with him directly when he contacted them to discuss highway issues in his area. This is because there is not enough evidence of fault by the Council or to show its actions caused Mr X significant injustice.

The complaint

1. The complainant, Mr X, is a local councillor. He complains a council officer refused to meet or communicate with him directly when he asked the officer to discuss highways issues affecting his constituents. He says the officer’s response was disrespectful and is impacting on his role as a local councillor.

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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
• further investigation would not lead to a different outcome.

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

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How I considered this complaint

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

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My assessment

5. We do not investigate all the complaints we receive. In deciding whether to investigate we need to consider various tests. These include the alleged injustice to the person complaining. We only investigate the most serious complaints.
6. I understand Mr X is unhappy the officer refused to meet and correspond with him directly but the issue does not cause him such significant injustice that it warrants investigation. It is also unlikely we would find fault in the Council’s approach. This is because the Council has not refused Mr X access to a service, it has simply asked him to log his concerns as anyone else would. It has given Mr X three options to do this- by contacting the Council’s contact centre, emailing its highways team or submitting his enquiry through the relevant county councillor. It is not required to give Mr X direct contact to a specific highways officer and the fact it has not does not impact on his ability to raise concerns about any highways issues in the area he represents.

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Final decision

7. We will not investigate this complaint. This is because 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