The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint that the complainants emails were blocked by the Council. This is because there is insufficient evidence that any fault by the Council caused the complaint a significant injustice.
The complaint
The complainant, who I will call Mr X, complains that the Council blocked his emails from being sent to a senior officer at the Council and about how the Council dealt with his complaint about this. He says the issue has caused him distress and that he has lost faith in the Council’s children’s services.
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.
(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 sent an email to several recipients at the Council, including a senior officer working in children’s services. He received an automatic response saying that his email to the senior officer had been blocked. He complained and the Council apologised, saying that the email was blocked to that recipient because of human error. The Council provided Mr X with a list of emails it had received and when the Council had responded, the list included the email subject to his complaint, which was responded to on the same day he sent it.
I will not investigate Mr X’s complaint. Whilst the senior officer did not receive the email in question the Council has demonstrated that his emails are being responded to. Whilst I understand that the blocking of his email may have caused him a certain level of frustration, I do not consider this a significant enough injustice to warrant further investigation.
Final decision
We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because any fault by the Council has not caused him a significant injustice.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman