The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: There was no fault in the way the Council decided to place Mr X on its restricted persons register. It followed its procedures and took actions available to it in line with its policy. Any other fault in the Council’s application of its policy did not cause Mr X any injustice.
The complaint
The complainant, whom I will refer to as Mr X, complains the Council did not follow its own policy when it declared him a ‘restricted person’, thereby limiting how he was able to contact the Council. He says it made this decision to prevent him pursuing a complaint and being critical of the Council.
Mr X says this decision demonstrated contempt for due process by the Council and left him feeling insulted and humiliated. Mr X believes the Council acted deliberately in a way to deter him from making a complaint.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
If we are satisfied with an organisation’s actions or proposed actions, we can complete our investigation and issue a decision statement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 30(1B) and 34H(i), as amended) We investigate complaints of injustice caused by ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. I have used the word fault to refer to these. We consider whether there was fault in the way an organisation made its decision. If there was no fault in the decision making, we cannot question the outcome. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended) We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint, which we call ‘injustice’. We can complete our investigation where we determine any fault has not caused an injustice to the person who complained.
How I considered this complaint
I wrote to Mr X and considered the information he provided.
I wrote to the Council and considered the information they provided.
I considered the Council’s policy on unreasonable or unreasonably persistent complainants.
Mr X and the Council had an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I considered any comments before making a final decision.
What I found
What should have happened The Council’s policy details the steps the Council can take to restrict contact with ‘unreasonably persistent’ complainants. It says a deputy director, a director or the chief executive can make this decision.
The policy sets out several options the Council may consider before deciding to make someone a restricted person. These options include sending the person a warning letter beforehand.
The policy says the Council can restrict a person’s contact when they are inappropriately pursuing finalised complaints. It also says the Council can apply different considerations to finalised complaints because no further contact is needed.
The policy provides guidance about the options the Council can take, including: Limiting the complainant to one contact method and/or one contact person.
Refusing to register or process complaints about the same matter.
Reading further letters and placing them on file without replying to them.
The policy says when the Council has decided, it will write to the person and tell them about the decision. It will also say what this means for that person’s contact with the Council, how long the restrictions will last, and how they can ask for a review.
The Council should send a copy of the policy with its letter.
Finally, the policy says a person senior to the original decision maker should carry out the review.
Background
The Council provided me with information about Mr X’s email contact with them, from October 2021 onwards. The exchanges relate to contact Mr X had with the Council in 2019.
Mr X stated in some of this correspondence that the Council’s actions in 2019 were wrong and he believed Council officers were ‘covering up its mishandling of this investigation’.
What happened In November 2021, the Council wrote to Mr X and explained they had previously provided responses to Mr X’s complaint in April and October that year. It also accepted Mr X had not agreed the complaint had been raised to stage two of the Council’s complaints process. It explained it had considered its complaint process when it decided this.
The Council told Mr X he could ask the Ombudsman to review his complaint and it would co-operate with any investigation.
In January 2022, Mr X sent the Council another complaint about 2019 matters and the Council replied saying it would not investigate because it was more than 12 months old. The Council explained to Mr X that he could approach the Ombudsman with his complaint.
In this email, the Council explained any further contact from Mr X on the same issue would be placed on its file and it would not reply to him.
Mr X wrote to me and said in mid-March he wrote to the Council with two further complaints relating to complaint handling and how the Council had carried out a review.
In late March, the Council wrote to Mr X and told him it had placed him on the restricted persons register (RPR) for one year. It told Mr X the reason for this was because the volume of his contact was impacting on officers’ time, and this meant they could not support other people.
The Council told Mr X he could let it know of any reasons these restrictions should not be applied and ask it for a copy of the RPR entry. A service manager signed the letter. The Council did not send a copy of the policy with this letter but included a hyper link to the policy on the Council’s web site.
The letter set out the following conditions: Mr X could contact the Council in writing either by hand or postal delivery.
Any contact would be reviewed, but previous matters already dealt with would not be replied to.
Emails would not be acknowledged and would be deleted.
In late March, Mr X sent the manager an email, titled ‘DDA reasonable adjustments’. Mr X set out various arguments about why the RPR was unsuitable. He also told the Council he believed he is a person with disabilities as defined under the ‘DDA’ and the conditions imposed were unacceptable because of this. Mr X asked the Council, as a reasonable adjustment, to email him any contact in future.
Mr X also suggested other conditions the Council could consider in restricting his contact.
In early April, Mr X made a complaint titled ‘formal stage one complaint’. He complained the council had provided a poor standard of service because it had not replied to his email he sent in March.
Also in early April, Mr X sent the Council a letter setting out his request for a review of the RPR decision.
In mid-April, the Council wrote to Mr X. It said it had received Mr X’s stage one complaint and said it identified the content related to the decision to place him on the RPR. It explained it was now following the RPR policy and not the complaint policy. It also referred to the second letter Mr X sent it, as an appeal against the decision.
The Council said, in considering Mr X’s appeal against the RPR decision, it was looking to see whether the original decision was reasonable and appropriate. The Council added that Mr X had sent the Council 44 emails in the previous three months. The Council also acknowledged Mr X had said he was a person with disabilities, and that he had asked for a reasonable adjustment. A director signed the letter.
The Council rejected the review and explained it was preventing unnecessary work being carried out by its staff because of the following reasons: Volume of emails sent.
Repetitive nature of many of them.
Multiple people receiving them.
In May, the Council replied to a further request by Mr X and explained the service manager took the decision to place him on the RPR. It also followed this up in July, sending Mr X a copy of the register Mr X had asked for and apologised for not sending it.
The Council wrote to me and said that a complaints manager referred the RPR to a service manager and a director (not the reviewing director) and they jointly decided.
My findings
The Council previously told Mr X it had resolved his complaints and suggested he could contact the Ombudsman. In January, it explained it would no longer respond to matters already responded to. One of the examples the policy cites of unreasonably persistent behaviours include refusing to accept a decision.
The Council says the decision was taken by both the service manager and a director. There is no evidence of the involvement of the director in the decision making and the weight of evidence suggests the service manager made the decision and this was communicated to Mr X. That is fault.
When the Council told Mr X about the decision, it did so in writing, and it told Mr X how this would affect his contact and for how long. It explained how he could ask for a review. This is in line with the policy. The Council enclosed a link to the policy but did not send a copy, and this too was fault.
The Council restricted Mr X’s contact in a way that was permitted according to policy. It wrote to me and said it did not consider a warning necessary because Mr X had continued to email the Council after it had told him his complaints were closed. This is not fault, because the policy does not say a warning must be given.
Mr X asked the Council to review the decision and asked for a reasonable adjustment. The evidence shows a different director replied to these requests and explained why it was not overturning the original decision. There is no evidence of fault in how the Council made this decision.
The policy allows for different conditions in cases where previous complaints are closed. Mr X may maintain a view he did not see the outstanding complaints as being resolved, but the evidence suggests the Council did and communicated this to him.
Although there was some fault in some procedural elements of the RPR decision, I have seen no evidence the decision would have been different had another decision maker considered it. Mr X had access to the policy and asked for an appeal within a reasonably short time – as evidenced by his contact. I do not believe these faults caused him any injustice.
Final decision
There was no fault in the way the Council decided to place Mr X on the restricted persons register and any other fault in the process did not cause Mr X an injustice.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman