The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about the Council’s failure to respond to his correspondence about a dropped kerb application in July 2021. This is because the complaint is late and I have seen no good reasons for the delay in complaining to us.
The complaint
The complainant, Mr X, complains the Council failed to respond to his correspondence about a dropped kerb application in July 2021. He says this caused delays to his application and resulted in more than £400 of additional costs related to increases in the costs of materials and construction.
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’.
The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
We cannot investigate late complaints unless we decide there are good reasons. Late complaints are when someone takes more than 12 months to complain to us about something a council has done. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26B and 34D, as amended)
How I considered this complaint
I considered information provided by Mr X and the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
Mr X initially contacted the Council about his application for a dropped kerb in July 2021. The Council acknowledges it did not respond to his email but Mr X did not complain about this until 2023.
The Council issued its final response to Mr X’s complaint in September 2023. This stated: You can now ask the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman (the Ombudsman) to review your complaint. You usually have up to 12 months to do this, starting from the date you first knew about the matter you complained about, not from the date of this letter. The Ombudsman will normally only consider complaints made within that time but can decide to look at older complaints if there is a good reason to do so.
But Mr X did not complain to us about the matter until March 2024. His complaint is therefore late.
We have discretion to investigate late complaints but I have seen no good reasons to exercise our discretion in this case. Mr X believes the increase in the cost of proceeding with his application for a dropped kerb results from the Council’s failure to respond to his correspondence in July 2021 and it would have been reasonable for him to complain about this at the time. But he did not and his complaint to us is almost two years outside our timescales for investigation.
The Council has apologised for not responding to Mr X’s correspondence but this does not mean it should now use public funds to absorb the additional cost of installing Mr X’s dropped kerb. The dropped kerb will provide a benefit to Mr X- it may increase the value of his property- and the increase in costs is outside the Council’s control and provides no benefit to it. It is therefore unlikely investigation would achieve the outcome Mr X wants.
Mr X can choose whether to proceed with the dropped kerb and if he does not, the Council has confirmed it will refund the money he has paid minus the application fee, which is non-refundable and was clearly stated as such on its website.
Final decision
We will not investigate this complaint. This is because it is late and it would have been reasonable for Mr X to complain to us sooner.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman