The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s decision not to investigate a complaint that a councillor had breached the code of conduct. There is no evidence of fault in the way the Council considered the complaint.
The complaint
The complainant, I shall call Mr X, complains a councillors breached the code of conduct when making posts on social media and their actions at an election count.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
We investigate complaints of injustice caused by ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. I have used the word ‘fault’ to refer to these. We cannot question whether an organisation’s decision is right or wrong simply because the complainant disagrees with it. We must consider whether there was fault in the way the decision was reached. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended)
How I considered this complaint
I considered information provided by Mr X and the Council.
I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
Mr X complained to the Council that a councillor had breached the code of conduct.
The Council’s Monitoring Officer considered the complaint according to the Council’s arrangements for dealing with such complaints. He decided the councillor was not acting in their capacity as a councillor when the posts were made/incident occurred. Therefore, the code was not engaged.
The code of conduct engages only when councillors are acting in their role as councillor.
The Ombudsman does not offer a right of appeal against a council’s decision on member conduct complaints, but we can consider if there was fault in the way the council considered the complaint. We will only investigate complaints if there is sufficient injustice to warrant our involvement or we consider it in the public interest to do so.
Final decision
We will not investigate this complaint as we have seen no evidence of fault in the way the Council considered Ms X’s complaint.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman