The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council refusing to consider and reply to a complaint on it not keeping to Mr B’s requested adjustments to its procedures and on it wrongly disclosing his personal information to his landlord. This is because the complaint does not meet the tests in our Assessment Code on how we decide which complaints to investigate. We have already decided complaints about events leading to the complaint and will not investigate the Council’s complaints handling separately. The Information Commissioner’s Office is best placed to consider complaints about information processing, and it would be reasonable to take any claim of disability discrimination to court.
The complaint
Mr B says the Council has refused to take complaints of discrimination from him about it: arranging to visit his home (for a gas safety inspection after his landlord failed to gain access) before 12 noon despite him asking for visits only after noon because of a physical disability; sending court papers by post rather than email only, as requested; and wrongly sharing his personal data with his landlord L&Q HA.
We have previously considered and decided not to investigate matters a) and b), and we will not consider them again.
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 do not start an investigation if we decide the tests set out in our Assessment Code are not met. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended) We normally expect someone to refer the matter to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) if they have a complaint about data protection.
The law says we cannot normally investigate a complaint when someone could take the matter to court. However, we may decide to investigate if we consider it would be unreasonable to expect the person to go to court. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(6)(c), as amended)
How I considered this complaint
I considered information provided by the complainant.
I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
Final decision
We will not investigate Mr B’s complaints about matters we have not already considered because: it would be reasonable to go to the ICO with a complaint about data protection or to take a claim of disability discrimination to court; and we will not investigate a council’s complaint handling if we are not investigating matters which led to a complaint.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman