The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s decision not to uphold complaints that two councillors breached the Council’s code of conduct. There is not enough evidence of fault in the way the Council considered the complaints to justify an investigation.
The complaint
Mr X complains the Council refused to act on his reports that two councillors (I shall call councillor A and councillor B) had breached the code of conduct. He also says the Council blocked his email address.
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.
(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))
How I considered this complaint
I considered information provided by Mr X and the Council.
I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
Local Authorities have a duty to have a Monitoring Officer to ensure the legality and fairness of authority decision making. The Monitoring Officer must ensure the Council, its officers, and elected members uphold 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 decision. We can only look at how the complaint was considered. We are also unable to investigate or comment on the actions of the councillor(s) complained about.
In this case, the Monitoring Officer assessed the complaint. He decided councillor A was not acting as an elected member when the alleged breach of the code took place. He also advised Mr X he had referred this complaint to the police.
In the case of councillor B, the Monitoring Officer confirmed the code of conduct was engaged. He investigated Mr X’s complaint. However, he found no evidence to support the allegation.
The Monitoring Officer wrote to Mr X with his decision on both complaints. He confirmed Mr X had a right to appeal against the decision.
Mr X did not appeal. In response to my enquiry, Mr X says the Council blocked his email address. He has not provided evidence of this.
The Council confirms it has checked with its legal team and digital services team and Mr X’s email addresses have not been blocked. Therefore, there is no reason why Mr X could have appealed to the Council.
I understand Mr X disagrees. However, the information I have seen shows the Monitoring Officer dealt with his complaints according to the procedure for dealing with code of conduct complaints.
Final decision
We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because there is insufficient evidence of fault in the way the Council considered his complaints.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman