The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about how the Council dealt with a complaint about the conduct of a councillor. This is because we are unlikely to find fault and the complainant has not suffered significant injustice.
The complaint
Ms X has complained about how the Council’s Monitoring Officer dealt with her complaint about the conduct of a councillor. Ms X says her complaint has not been dealt with objectively or appropriately and there were significant delays before she received a response from the Monitoring Officer.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
We 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 or continue 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), as amended, section 34(B))
How I considered this complaint
I considered information provided by Ms X and the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
Local Authorities have a duty to designate a Monitoring Officer to ensure the lawfulness and fairness of authority decision making. The Monitoring Officer must ensure that the authority, its officers and members maintain 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 decisions. We are also unable to investigate or comment on the actions of the councillor complained about. We can consider the Monitoring Officer’s administration of a code of conduct complaint. However, where a decision has been made in line with the correct procedure, taking account of the relevant evidence, the Ombudsman will generally not criticise the decision, even if the complainant does not agree with it.
In this case, the Monitoring Officer considered Ms X’s concerns and contacted the councillor complained about for their comments. The Monitoring Officer decided not to take any further action in relation to Ms X’s concerns as they said the code of conduct had not been breached.
Ms X does not agree with the Monitoring Officer’s findings and says the Officer just accepted what the councillor said. However, the Monitoring Officer was entitled to use their professional judgement to decide the complaint should not be investigated. I am satisfied the Monitoring Officer considered Ms X’s concerns and the evidence available and properly explained why they did not consider the complaint should be investigated. Ms X says the Independent Person was not consulted. The Council’s criteria for code of conduct complaints says the Monitoring Officer can consult the Independent Person at any stage in the complaint process. But the Monitoring Officer is only required to consult the Independent Person if they have decided the issues should be formally investigated.
Ms X has also complained about how long it took the Council to deal with her complaint. While I understand the delays may have been frustrating for Ms X, I do not consider the injustice suffered because of the delays significant enough to justify an investigation by the Ombudsman.
Final decision
We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint because we are unlikely to find fault and Ms X has not suffered any significant injustice as a result of any delays in responding to her complaint.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman