London Borough of Sutton (21 007 875)
Category : Other Categories > Councillor conduct and standards
Decision : Closed after initial enquiries
Decision date : 13 Oct 2021
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s response to a Member Code of Conduct complaint. This is because there is no evidence of fault by the Council in its handling of the complaint.
The complaint
- The complainant, who I refer to as Ms X, complains about the Council’s response to a complaint she made about an untrue statement made by a local councillor concerning contact with an organisation Ms X is involved with.
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 may decide not to start an investigation if the tests set out in our Assessment Code are not met. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)
How I considered this complaint
- I considered information provided by Ms X, including the Council’s response to her complaint.
- I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
- We do not offer a right of appeal against a council’s decision on member conduct complaints. While we can consider if there was fault in the way the council considered the complaint, we will only investigate complaints if there is sufficient injustice to warrant our involvement or we consider it in the public interest to do so.
- In this case, and in accordance with normal procedures, the Monitoring Officer considered Ms X’s complaint against the councillor, consulted with the Independent Person and decided it would not be in the public interest to undertake an external investigation of the complaint. This is a decision the Council is entitled to make and I have seen no evidence to suggest fault affected its decision.
Final decision
- We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint because there is no evidence of fault by the Council in its handling of the complaint.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman