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 two councillors. We are unlikely to find fault in the Councils actions.
The complaint
The complainant, whom I shall refer to as Mr X, complains the Council refuses to investigate his complaint that two councillors will not to respond to his requests to meet him or discuss his concerns.
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 Mr X and the Council.
I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
Local Authorities have a duty to appoint a Monitoring Officer to ensure the lawfulness and fairness of authority decision making. The Monitoring Officer must ensure the authority, its officers, and members uphold 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 can only look at how the complaint was considered. We cannot investigate or comment on the actions of the councillor(s) themselves.
In this case, the Monitoring Officer decided not to take any further action. There is no specific requirement for councillors to respond to members of the public or meet with them. The Monitoring Officer did not consider the councillors had breached the member’s code of conduct. I understand Mr X may disagree, but this was a decision the Monitoring Officer was entitled to make.
As the Monitoring Officer dealt with Mr X’s concerns in line with the Council’s arrangements for code of conduct complaints, it is unlikely I could find fault.
Final decision
We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because we are unlikely to find fault in the way the Council considered his complaint.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman