The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about how the Council’s Monitoring Officer dealt with a complaint about the conduct of a councillor. This is because we are unlikely to find fault.
The complaint
The complainant, whom I shall refer to as Mrs X, has complained about the behaviour of a local councillor. She says the councillor breached the member’s code of conduct and made inappropriate comments about her in the local press.
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 there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6))
How I considered this complaint
I considered information provided by Mrs X and the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
Local Authorities have a duty to designate a Monitoring Officer to ensure the lawfulness and fairness of authority decision making. The Monitoring Officer must ensure that the authority, its officers and members maintain the highest standards of conduct. Each council has different rules for dealing with complaints about code of conduct breaches.
The Ombudsman does not provide an appeal against the Monitoring Officer’s decision. We are also unable to investigate or comment on the actions of the councillor complained about. We can consider the Council’s administration of a code of conduct complaint. However, where a decision has been made in line with the correct procedure, taking account of the relevant evidence, the Ombudsman will generally not criticise the decision, even if the complainant does not agree with it.
In this case, the Monitoring Officer decided not to take any further action as they did not consider the councillor had breached the members code of conduct. The Monitoring Officer said they considered the councillor’s comments to be political comments made as part of ordinary political discourse and discussion on matters of public debate.
I understand Mrs X may disagree, but this was a decision the Monitoring Officer was entitled to make. As the Monitoring Officer dealt with Mrs X’s concerns in line with the Council’s criteria for code of conduct complaints, it is unlikely I could find fault.
Final decision
We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because we are unlikely to find fault by the Council.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman