The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about changes to swimming times at a local leisure centre. This is because the case does not meet the tests in our Assessment Code on how we decide which complaints to investigate. There is not enough evidence of fault by the Council.
The complaint
The complainant, Mrs X, complained about changes to swimming times at a local leisure centre. Mrs X says the new times are inconvenient and is unhappy with how the Council investigated her complaint.
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 not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B)) It is not a good use of public resources to investigate complaints about complaint procedures, if we are unable to deal with the substantive issue.
How I considered this complaint
I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
We will not start an investigation into Mrs X’s complaint.
The role of the Ombudsman is not to act as an appeal body, nor is it our role to make operational decisions for councils. We can only question decisions if there was a serious flaw in how they were reached.
In this case, Mrs X is unhappy with an operational decision. The Council has responded to Mrs X and said the changes were to align swim times and to allow a changeover period between different sessions. These are decisions for the Council and its contractor. The Council has said it will review the decision in the new year. There is not enough evidence of fault by the Council to warrant our involvement.
We will not investigate complaint handling as a standalone issue if we are not going to look at the issue which led to the original complaint. This applies here.
Final decision
We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because there is not enough evidence of fault.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman