The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint that a Council employee incorrectly claimed that the complainant had made comments about a third party. This is because we could not add to the investigation already carried out by the Council and the issues raised have not cause the complainant a significant enough injustice to warrant further investigation.
The complaint
The complainant, who I will call Mr X, complains that an employee of the Council incorrectly claimed that Mr X had made comments about a third party during a telephone conversation.
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, or any fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained, or any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement, or we could not add to any previous investigation by the organization.
(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
Mr X spoke with a Council employee about matters relating to a Council funded community centre. Mr X subsequently complained that the employee had subsequently claimed that Mr X had made rude and disparaging comments about a third party, and that the employee had also told another person not to contact Mr X again.
The Council carried out an investigation. It spoke to the employee who gave their account of the conversation with Mr X, whose recollection of the call differed from Mr X’s. The employee also denied saying that the third party should not speak to Mr X again. The Council concluded that its employee had given an honest account of the events and that it would not take any further action.
I will not investigate Mr X’s complaint. This is because Mr X and the employee have different recollections about what was said during the conversation. I was not privy to the conversation and there is no recording of the call, so I could not reconcile the conflicting views. There is therefore nothing that further investigation by the Ombudsman could add to the Council’s investigation.
Furthermore, whilst I acknowledge that Mr X is unhappy with the actions of the Council employee, I do not consider that this in itself is a significant enough injustice to justify our involvement.
Final decision
We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because we could not add to the Council’s investigation, and he has not suffered a significant injustice.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman