The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint that the Council provided inaccurate information about the complainant’s previous complaints during a meeting to consider an application from a group he volunteers for. This is because any injustice to the complainant is not sufficient enough to justify our involvement.
The complaint
The complainant, who I will call Mr X, complains that the Council provided inaccurate information about him during a meeting to consider an application from a group that he volunteers for.
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 any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement. Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6))
How I considered this complaint
I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
Mr X says the information the Council provided about him and his previous correspondence with the Council and councillors led to a Councillor attacking him on social media and was used to justify the Council refusing the application from the volunteer group.
Mr X has made it clear that he is not complaining about the outcome of the groups application and has also made a separate complaint about the conduct of the Councillor. Mr X has explained that he feels that he has been treated unfairly by the Council and because the conversations were not minute, he cannot challenge what was said. However, on balance I do not consider that these factors alone have caused a significant enough injustice to Mr X to justify our further involvement. For this reason, I will not investigate Mr X’s complaint.
Final decision
We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because he has not suffered a significant enough injustice to justify our further involvement.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman