The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about the Council’s failure to agree the reasonable adjustments he requested for a speed awareness course administered by the Council. There is insufficient evidence of fault to warrant an investigation.
The complaint
Mr X complained the Council failed to agree the reasonable arrangements he requested for a speed awareness course administered by the Council. He says this caused him distress. He wants the Council to apologise and review its approach to reasonable adjustments.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
We investigate complaints about councils and certain other bodies. We cannot investigate the actions of bodies such as Police or the National Driver Offender Retraining Scheme. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 25 and 34(1), as amended) The Act says we can investigate “alleged or apparent maladministration in connection with the exercise of the authority’s administrative functions” (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(1)) Sometimes councils make decisions where it appears they are acting on behalf of a body not in jurisdiction. Where the complaint concerns actions that the council is responsible for taking, these actions are likely to be administrative functions and fall within our jurisdiction.
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 not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating.
(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))
How I considered this complaint
I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
The Council administers speed awareness courses on behalf of the National Driver Offender Retraining Scheme (NDORS) and the Police. As part of the booking process, a person can request reasonable adjustments to enable them to attend a course. Part of the Council’s administrative role is to consider the requested adjustments and, if it considers them reasonable, arrange with the course provider for these to be put in place. As part of its consideration, it may seek further advice from NDORS.
Mr X booked a speed awareness course and requested reasonable adjustments. He booked the course on a Friday for the following Monday. The Council rang him on the Friday to discuss his requests. However, it decided the requests needed further consideration before it could reach a decision. It asked Mr X to consider re-scheduling his course to a later date to enable the Council to fully consider his requests. Mr X did not agree to this.
Mr X attended the course on the Monday. He complained the course provider refused to allow all his reasonable adjustments which caused him distress.
We will not investigate this complaint. The Council agreed to consider his requests but, given Mr X had booked his course for the next working day, did not have sufficient time to do this. Mr X declined to re-schedule his course to a later date and chose to attend the booked course, before the Council had confirmed with him whether it agreed to his requests. This was Mr X’s decision to make. An investigation is unlikely to lead to a finding of Council fault.
Final decision
We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because it is unlikely an investigation would lead to a finding of fault.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman