The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about how the Council has communicated with the complainant. This is because any injustice caused to the complainant is not significant to warrant investigation and because investigation would not lead to a different outcome.
The complaint
Mrs X complains about how the Council has communicated with her. She says a member of staff was rude to her on the telephone, hanging up on her. Mrs X say that on another occasion a member of staff made inappropriate comments about her in an email.
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 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 continue an investigation if we decide: any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement, or further investigation would not lead to a different outcome.
(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))
How I considered this complaint
I considered information provided by the complainant.
I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
I will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint. This is because I do not consider that the issues raised have caused Mrs X a significant enough injustice to warrant our investigation. Furthermore, the Council has acknowledged that the telephone call and email were handled poorly and apologised. This is a proportionate response and so further investigation would therefore not achieve a different outcome.
Final decision
We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because the issues raised have not caused her a significant injustice and investigation would not lead to a different outcome.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman