The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about how the Council dealt with a planning application. This is because the complainant has not suffered significant personal injustice as a result of the alleged fault.
The complaint
The complainant, whom I shall refer to as Mrs X, has complained about how the Council dealt with a planning application. She says the Council’s decision to refuse planning permission was inconsistent and based on inaccurate information. Mrs X says the Council failed to visit the site and there were long delays.
Mrs X has also complained about how the Council dealt with her complaint.
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 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 Mrs X and the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
Mrs X may disagree with the Council’s decision to refuse planning permission and be unhappy with how it dealt with the application. But these matters did not cause Mrs X any personal injustice as she is not the planning applicant.
Mrs X has also complained about the Council’s complaint handling and says it has not properly investigated her concerns or answered her questions. However, where the Ombudsman has decided not to investigate the substantive issues complained about, we will not usually use public resources to consider more minor matters such as complaint handling.
Final decision
We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because she has not been caused significant personal injustice because of the alleged fault by the Council.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman