The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the District Council’s decision on a code of conduct complaint against parish councillors who considered the complainant’s planning application. This is because the complaint does not meet the tests in our Assessment Code on how we decide which complaints to investigate. We cannot investigate complaints about parish councils, and there is insufficient evidence of fault causing significant injustice in the way the District Council considered the associated code of conduct complaint.
The complaint
The complainant, whom I refer to as Mr X, says the District Council’s decision on his code of conduct complaint against parish councillors was flawed. In particular, Mr X says: The complaint response incorrectly says amendments were requested by the Planning Committee, when they had in fact been incorporated into the proposal prior to the Planning Committee’s involvement.
The complaint response refers to “strong term” statements made by objectors to the planning application, but these statements were incorrect, and he has taken legal action against them.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
The Ombudsman can investigate 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 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.
(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6)) With regard to our consideration of fault, we cannot question whether a council’s decision is right or wrong simply because the complainant disagrees with it. We must consider whether there is clear evidence of procedural fault in the way the decision was reached. If there is evidence of fault in the process, we consider whether this is likely to have affected the outcome.(Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended) But we cannot investigate the actions of bodies such as parish councils. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 25 and 34A, as amended)
How I considered this complaint
I considered information provided by Mr X, and the District Council’s response to the code of conduct complaint.
I also considered our Assessment Code, and the District Council’s code of conduct complaint process.
My assessment
I appreciate Mr X is unhappy with comments made by parish councillors during their consideration of his planning application, and the decision of the Parish Council to ‘call-in’ his application for consideration by the District Council’s Planning Committee.
But the Ombudsman has no power to investigate parish councils, as they are not bodies within our jurisdiction.
We are therefore limited to considering how the District Council considered Mr X’s code of conduct complaint against the parish councillors.
The District Council’s Monitoring Officer considered Mr X’s complaint, having sought input from the appointed Independent Person, and gave her reasons for deciding that no further action should be taken. The Council has therefore considered Mr X’s complaint in accordance with its code of conduct complaint process.
I note Mr X has identified alleged flaws in the complaint response letter, but I do not see that these have affected the Monitoring Officer’s decision to take no further action. So, the alleged faults have not caused Mr X a significant injustice.
Final decision
We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because we have no power to consider the actions or decisions of the Parish Council, and there is insufficient evidence of fault causing significant injustice in the way the District Council consider the code of conduct complaint.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman