The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about matters related to a play area and Council-owned building. This is mainly because the matters complained of did not disadvantage Mr X significantly enough for the Ombudsman to investigate.
The complaint
Mr X complains about matters related to a Council play area and a Council-owned pavilion building. The play area was out of use because it needed some replacement equipment. The pavilion was in disrepair, which Mr X said had been allowed to worsen.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
The Ombudsman investigates 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 may decide not to continue with an investigation if we decide any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6)) We cannot investigate something that affects all or most of the people in a council’s area. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(7), as amended)
How I considered this complaint
I considered information provided by the complainant and copy correspondence from the Council.
I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
Mr X lives over 30 miles away from the Council’s area by road. He saw the play area and pavilion building on a seven-day visit to the Council’s area.
Mr X says the Council is at fault in various ways. As paragraph 2 explained, we will not investigate a complaint just because a Council might be at fault. We will only investigate where the alleged or actual fault affected the person complaining significantly enough for the Ombudsman to devote time and public money to pursuing the complaint. It is not the Ombudsman’s role to police councils’ activities generally or to oversee how councils use public money.
The play area being out of use did not significantly disadvantage Mr X personally. He does not live in the area and obviously he did not expect to use the play equipment himself. If, on his visit to the area, he was accompanied by children who might have wanted to use play area, they might have had some disappointment, but that in itself would not be a significant enough injustice for us to investigate.
I appreciate Mr X did not like seeing the pavilion in disrepair. However, given how far away he lives, I do not consider the building’s condition affects Mr X significantly in practical terms.
Mr X argues the Council has not used taxpayers’ money properly on the play area and building. He is not a taxpayer in the Council’s area. The taxes Mr X pays would not go in any significant amount to Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council for spending on this play area and building. So Mr X is not significantly affected by the public money point. The restriction in paragraph 3 prevents us considering any financial impact on taxpayers who do live in the Council’s area because any financial impact would affect most residents of Council’s area.
Mr X is also unhappy with the Council’s complaint-handling and communications with him about the above matters. These points resulted from Mr X’s choice to pursue matters that did not cause him a significant personal injustice. It is not a good use of public resources to investigate complaints about complaint procedures or communications, if we are not dealing with the substantive issues.
Final decision
We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because the injustice to him is not significant enough and we do not have power to consider any impact on taxpayers in the Council’s area.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman