The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s decision not to look into a complaint that a councillor breached the code of conduct. There is not enough evidence of fault in the Council’s decision making. Nor do we consider the complainant to have suffered sufficient personal injustice to warrant our involvement.
The complaint
The complainant, I shall call Miss X, complains the Council failed to act on her complaint that a councillor used offensive language during a public meeting.
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 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 Miss X and the Council.
I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
The Council’s Monitoring Officer decided not investigate Miss X’s complaint as he considered it did not warrant any formal investigation.
While I understand Mr X disagrees with this decision, I do not consider this causes her a level of injustice that warrants our involvement.
Therefore, I do not consider it would be in the public interest for us to investigate.
Final decision
We will not investigate Miss X’s complaint because she is not caused significant personal injustice from the Council’s decision not to follow up her complaint about a councillor.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman