The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about the Council’s handling of his complaint about a planning matter. This is because the complaint does not meet the tests in our Assessment Code on how we decide which complaints to investigate.
The complaint
The complainant, Mr X, complains the Council failed to properly deal with his complaint about its handling of a planning application. He says he has wasted hundreds of hours of his time in pursuing the matter.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’, which we call ‘fault’. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse effect on the person making the complaint, which we call ‘injustice’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We may decide not to start an investigation if the tests set out in our Assessment Code are not met. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)
How I considered this complaint
I considered information provided by Mr X and the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
We do not investigate all the complaints we receive. In deciding whether to investigate we need to consider various tests. These include the alleged injustice to the person complaining. We only investigate the most serious complaints.
When assessing complaints we look at the impact of the matter giving rise to the complaint; we will not generally investigate complaints about a council’s complaints handling unless we decide to investigate the underlying issue.
Mr X’s original complaint stems from the Council’s handling of an application for development near his home. But the site is far enough away from his property that the decision to grant planning permission does not cause him significant injustice. It does not therefore warrant further investigation and it is unlikely we would recommend any remedy for Mr X, even if we found fault.
Mr X asks that we look at the way the Council handled his complaint but we will not investigate this issue in isolation. Mr X says he has spent hundreds of hours pursuing the matter but this was his choice; it is not the direct and unavoidable result of any fault by the Council and it would not be a good use of our resources to investigate the matter further.
Final decision
We will not investigate this complaint. This is because the Council’s decision does not cause Mr X significant injustice.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman