The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s delay in determining Ms X’s Code of Conduct complaint made against a local councillor. This is because the Council has now issued its final report on the matter and there are insufficient grounds to warrant an investigation.
The complaint
Ms X complained that a year’s delay by the Council in determining her complaint made against a local councillor led her to believe her concerns had not been taken seriously.
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 fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained, 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, or there is no worthwhile outcome achievable by our investigation.
(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))
How I considered this complaint
I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council, including its final report on the complaint.
I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
We do not offer a right of appeal against a council’s decision on member conduct complaints, but we can consider if there was fault in the way the council considered the complaint. We will only investigate complaints if there is sufficient injustice to warrant our involvement or we consider it in the public interest to do so.
The complaint was not straightforward and it did take time for the Council to investigate and make its final determination. However, it has now released its decision and final report to Ms X. We do not investigate every complaint we receive and there are insufficient grounds to warrant an investigation in this case.
Final decision
We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint because the Council has now issued its final report on the matter and there are insufficient grounds to warrant an investigation.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman