The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s failure to provide information. This is because the complaint does not meet the tests in our Assessment Code on how we decide which complaints to investigate. The Information Commissioner’s Office is better placed to consider the complaint. And there is not enough injustice because of a failure in the complaints procedure to justify an investigation.
The complaint
The complainant, I shall call Ms B, complains: the Council fails to provide information both she and her solicitor has asked for; and failed to follow its complaints procedure.
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: any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement, or there is another body better placed to consider this complaint, (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6)) The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) considers complaints about freedom of information. Its decision notices may be appealed to the First Tier Tribunal (Information Rights). So, where we receive complaints about freedom of information, we normally consider it reasonable to expect the person to refer the matter to the Information Commissioner.
How I considered this complaint
I considered information provided by Ms B, including her correspondence with the Council.
I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
Final decision
We will not investigate Ms B’s about a lack of response to requests for information from her and her solicitor. The ICO is the UK’s independent authority set up to uphold information rights.
There is no charge for making a complaint to the ICO, and its’ complaints procedure is straightforward to use. Where someone has a complaint about data protection or access to information, the Ombudsman usually expects them to bring the matter to the attention of the ICO. The ICO is in a better position than the Ombudsman to consider such complaints. We will therefore not investigate this complaint.
Ms B also complains about how the Council has responded to her complaint. It is not a good use of public resources to investigate complaints about complaint procedures, if we are unable to deal with the substantive issue. As we are not investigating Ms B’s substantive complaint, we will not investigate the Council’s complaint handling as a discrete point.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman