The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate Mr X's complaint about the Council's handling of his clients’ planning applications and its complaint handling. This is because any injustice to Mr X is not significant enough to justify an investigation.
The complaint
Mr X complains the Council delayed deciding his clients’ planning applications and failed to respond to correspondence. He says this delayed the progress of projects he was working on. He wants the Council to respond to his correspondence and issue planning decisions.
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. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))
How I considered this complaint
I considered information provided by Mr X and the Council.
I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
Mr X complained to the Council about delays in deciding his clients’ planning applications filed in March and July 2025. The Council explained it treated his contact as an urgent service request rather than a complaint to secure a quicker response to his concerns.
The Council issued decisions on the planning applications in February 2026. This was a significant delay beyond the statutory timescale for deciding planning applications.
While Mr X may have experienced frustration because of the delay and lack of communication, the planning applications belonged to his clients rather than to Mr X personally. Therefore, he has not suffered a direct personal injustice from the delay that is significant enough to justify the Ombudsman's involvement.
Mr X also complained about the Council's handling of his complaint. We do not normally investigate complaint handling as a stand-alone issue where we are not investigating the substantive matter. As we are not proposing to investigate the Council's delay in deciding the planning applications, it would not be a good use of public resources to investigate the complaint handling separately. Even if there was fault in the way the Council handled Mr X's complaint, I am unlikely to find this caused him a significant personal injustice.
Final decision
We will not investigate Mr X's complaint because any injustice is not significant enough to justify an investigation.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman