The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint that the Council denied him his democratic rights. This is because there is insufficient evidence of fault or significant injustice and further investigation would achieve nothing further nor a different outcome.
The complaint
Mr X complained the Council deliberately interfered with his democratic right to contact councillors and then tried to cover it up or use delaying tactics to dissuade him from continuing with his complaint.
Ms X says his democratic rights have been denied.
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; or we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation; 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 and the Council.
I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
Mr X emailed a councillor but did not receive a reply. He then emailed another three councillors about the same issues who also did not reply. He complained to the Council stating the councillors had breached the Code of Conduct. The Code of Conduct lays out the type of behaviour expected of councillors in their roles as elected representatives.
The Council responded and said that after investigation, it appeared Mr X’s emails had been going into the spam folder of the councillor he had first contacted. The councillor responded to his issues once this was discovered. The Council said it had altered the spam settings for all councillors so the same thing did not happen again.
Mr X did not accept this explanation and complained to us.
Mr X received a response to his original issues within around two months of him emailing the original councillor. He has received an explanation of what happened and the Council has taken appropriate steps to prevent a reoccurrence. There is insufficient evidence of significant fault or injustice. And further investigation would achieve nothing further nor achieve a different outcome.
Final decision
We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because there is insufficient evidence of fault or significant injustice, and further investigation would achieve nothing further or achieve a different outcome.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman