The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: Mr X complains about the Council’s discharge of a planning condition. We will not investigate this complaint because there is no evidence of fault by the Council causing Mr X an injustice.
The complaint
Mr X complains about the Council’s discharge of a planning condition.
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 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 we cannot achieve the outcome someone wants, or there is another body better placed to consider this complaint.
(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.
I considered the complainant’s comments on my draft decision
My assessment
Mr X works as a specialist previously employed by a developer as part of a need to satisfy a planning condition for a development.
The Council says that he queried the Council’s discharge of the planning condition and the payment by the developer of invoices from Mr X.
The Council says that the conditions were discharged on the basis of the evidence submitted.
Any injustice from the non discharge of planning conditions lies with the developer. Any person employed by the developer has a private remedy available in the courts if they are unhappy with the developer’s actions in relation to the discharge. I do not consider that the Council’s actions themselves have caused Mr X an injustice.
Final decision
I do not intend to investigate this complaint because there is no evidence of fault by the Council causing Mr X an injustice.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman