The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council falsely accusing Mrs Y of threatening behaviour. We could not add to the Council’s investigation, and we could not achieve a worthwhile outcome for Mrs Y.
The complaint
Mrs Y complained the Council made a false allegation about her and made assumptions without listening to her version of events. She says it was a conflict of interest for the manager of the officer involved to consider the complaint about their member of staff. Mrs Y has experienced significant distress. She wants the Council to correct the allegation.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
The Ombudsman investigates 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 may decide not to continue with an investigation if we decide we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation, or further investigation would not lead to a different outcome. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6))
How I considered this complaint
I considered information provided by the complainant.
I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
In November 2021, a Council officer involved in Mrs Y’s daughter’s case alleged that Mrs Y had made a comment that was threatening. Mrs Y says the Council did not let her clarify what she had said, instead contacting the police who turned up at her home. We could not say exactly what was said during the conversation in question. We could not say the Council’s allegation is false. Nor could we require it to remove the allegation from its records.
Mrs Y complained and is of the view that there was a conflict of interests because the manager of the officer involved responded to the complaint. It is not uncommon for an officer’s manager to respond to a complaint, and this would not be fault.
If we investigated Mrs Y’s complaint, we could not add anything of value to the Council’s response. Nor could we achieve a remedy that would be satisfactory for Mrs Y.
Final decision
We will not investigate Mrs Y’s complaint because we could not achieve a worthwhile outcome.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman