9.1 Is the complaint about action which affects all or most of the inhabitants of the area?

Section 26(7) covers this

 S26(7)  A Local Commissioner shall not conduct an investigation in respect of any action which in his opinion affects all or most of the inhabitants of the following

(aa) where the complaint relates to a National Park authority, the area of the Park for which it is such an authority;

(a).................................................................

 (b). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

(ba) where the complaint relates to the Homes and Communities Agency, any designated area within the meaning of Part 1 of the Housing and Regeneration Act 2008

(c) in any other case, the area of the authority concerned.

Remember the area of the authority means the whole of the local government area, e.g. the whole council area.

Few council actions that are the subject of complaints to us affect all or most people living there, so rejecting a complaint because we decide they do will be relatively rare. We interpret ‘most’ to mean a sizeable majority.

Clear examples of complaints caught by 26(7) because they affect all or most inhabitants, and are therefore OUT are:

• A complaint about council tax increases that affects everyone who pays council tax.
• A complaint that a council funded project is a waste of tax payers money. Even if only some people benefit from the project, all are affected by the impact on council tax (the claimed injustice). We need to be careful that this is the only claimed injustice however – and in any case any impact is likely to be so marginal that the personal injustice is small – and therefore general discretion may be safer.  
• A complaint about bin collections affected by strike action. All council residents are likely affected by the strike.
• Concern about the validity of housing assessment carried out for the local development plan. All council residents are affected by the local plan. Also the planning inspector is the place to question so could use 26(6).

Clear examples of complaints not caught by 26(7) because they do not affect all or most and which may (subject to general discretion) be IN are:

• That a council introduced parking charges at its country parks. IN because it is unlikely that a sizeable majority of the population are affected by using the parks and paying for the parking.
• Similarly, removal of parking or other concessions for pensioners or people with disabilities would be IN.

Complaints about decisions to cut council services, particularly ‘universal’ services available to most people (such as libraries), can sometimes seem appropriate for s26(7) based decisions that we cannot investigate the matter.

But care must be taken to consider whether most people are likely, in practice to be ‘affected’ by the decision.

While libraries are universally available, most people in a large council area are unlikely to be meaningfully affected by a decision to close a single library although they might arguably be by a policy decision affecting most/all libraries in the council area.

Rather than getting into a debate about how many people use libraries vs the population of the area, the safer option is therefore likely to consider general discretion with respect to the personal injustice suffered.