The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about a councillor’s conduct as there is insufficient evidence of fault by the Council in investigating the complaint, and the conduct itself is out of our remit.
The complaint
Mr X complains about the Council’s handling of his complaint about a town councillor’s post on a social media page which led to other posts threatening violence. This has left Mr X with concerns about his own personal safety.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
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 investigate complaints about councils and certain other bodies. We cannot investigate the actions of bodies such as town councils or about the actions of town councillors themselves (Local Government Act 1974, sections 25 and 34A, as amended)
How I considered this complaint
I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
The Council considered Mr X’s complaint in line with its procedure for dealing with complaints about councillor conduct. It decided that the councillor had been acting in a private capacity, not in an official capacity, when the social media post was made. The complaint was therefore rejected as the code of conduct did not apply.
I recognise Mr X is unhappy with this outcome but in the absence of fault in the Council’s decision-making process, we cannot question it. I have not seen evidence of such fault.
The actions of town councils and town councillors themselves are not within our remit and so we cannot investigate the actions of the councillor.
For these reasons, we will not investigate Mr X’s complaint.
Final decision
We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because there is insufficient evidence of fault by the Council.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman