The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s handling of Mr X’s complaint about a town councillor. This is because we cannot investigate the actions of town councillors and there is insufficient evidence of fault by the Council to show its handling of the complaint caused Mr X significant injustice. We also cannot achieve the outcome Mr X wants.
The complaint
Mr X complains the Council did not properly handle his complaint about a town councillor’s actions.
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 investigate complaints about councils and certain other bodies. We cannot investigate the actions of bodies such as town councils (Local Government Act 1974, sections 25 and 34(1), as amended)
How I considered this complaint
I considered information provided by the complainant.
I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
The Council’s monitoring team considers complaints about district, town and parish councillors. Mr X complained to the Council about the actions of a town councillor. The Council considered the complaint and decided it would take no action. It set out its reasons for this but Mr X is not happy with the decision.
We are not an appeal body. This means we do not take a second look at a decision to decide if it was wrong. Instead, we look at the processes an organisation followed to make its decision. If we consider it followed those processes correctly we cannot question whether the decision was right or wrong.
The evidence suggests the Council considered Mr X’s complaint in line with its procedure for dealing with complaints about councillors. I recognise that Mr X was not happy with the Council’s decision but there is insufficient evidence of fault by the Council to warrant an investigation.
We cannot in any event say the Council’s handling of the complaint itself caused Mr X significant injustice. The injustice he claims is the result of the actions of the town councillor and we have no jurisdiction to investigate these actions, as set out at Paragraph 3. We also could not achieve the outcome Mr X wants, which is to dismiss the town councillor from their role.
Final decision
We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because there is insufficient evidence of fault by the Council or to show its actions caused Mr X significant injustice. We cannot investigate the actions of the town councillor directly as they fall outside our jurisdiction.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman