The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint that the Council refused to allow the complainant to ask a question at a meeting and failed to make a reasonable adjustment in line with the Equality Act 2010. This is because there is insufficient evidence of fault causing a significant injustice.
The complaint
The complainant, who I will call Mrs X, complains that the Council refused her request to ask a question at a Council meeting because it was made late. She says the Council failed to make a reasonable adjustment under the Equality Act 2010, to allow a late question due to her disabilities. Mrs X says she has been discriminated against which means she was excluded from the democratic process which has caused her distress.
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 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
We cannot decide if a council has breached the Equality Act or whether an adjustment is reasonable, as this can only be done by the courts. We can make decisions about whether a council has properly taken the Act and its duties under it into account. Here the Council considered Mrs X’s request to allow a late meeting question to be submitted, but concluded it was not reasonable and explained to Mrs X why it reached this decision. There is therefore no evidence of fault in how it considered her request.
The Council did accept its approach to timelines for questions to be submitted for council meetings was inconsistent. It has therefore made changes to bring the deadlines in line with other meetings. Further investigation into this point would therefore not lead to a different outcome.
Furthermore, whilst the delay in receiving an answer to her question is likely to have caused Mrs X a level of frustration, I do not consider this in isolation has caused a significant enough injustice to warrant further investigation. This is because Mrs X had the opportunity to raise the question at later meetings or to raise the matter directly with Councillors.
Final decision
We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because there is insufficient evidence of fault.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman