East Hampshire District Council (24 005 702)
Category : Planning > Planning applications
Decision : Closed after initial enquiries
Decision date : 02 Sep 2024
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the way the Council dealt with a complaint about the conduct of an officer. We consider there is no worthwhile outcome achievable by an investigation. It is not a good use of public resources to simply achieve an apology which is the outcome the complainant is seeking.
The complaint
- Mr X complains a Council Officer lied to him about a planning application. He wants an apology for the lie from the Officer and an apology from the Council for allowing the matter to escalate.
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 there is no worthwhile outcome achievable by our investigation.
(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))
How I considered this complaint
- I considered information provided by the Mr X.
- I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
- Mr X says an Officer lied to him about his planning application and the Council refuses to take action.
- The Council has confirmed the Officer relied on verbal information provided to him and did not intend to mislead Mr X. It also confirms there is no documentary evidence about the matter and it has no reason to disbelieve the Officer.
- As the Council has confirmed there is no written or documentary evidence regarding the information provided to the Officer, therefore we do not consider an investigation would reveal anything further.
- Also, we do not consider it a good use of public funds to simply achieve an apology which is the outcome Mr X is seeking.
Final decision
- We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint for the reasons given above.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman