The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about drainage as any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement.
The complaint
Miss Y complained the Council has failed to provide suitable drainage in a park area near her home, leaving the area water-logged after heavy rain. She is also unhappy with the Council’s handling of her complaint.
Miss Y says the poor drainage contributed to the flooding of local residences in 2021.
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 any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement. (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 Miss Y provided and the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
Our role is to consider complaints where the person bringing the complaint has suffered significant personal injustice as a direct result of the actions or inactions of the organisation. This means we will normally only investigate a complaint where the complainant has suffered a serious loss, harm or distress as a direct result of faults or failures. We will not normally investigate a complaint where the alleged loss of injustice is not a serious or significant matter.
Miss Y may feel strongly about the matter but we would not consider her to have experienced a significant personal injustice which is serious loss, harm or distress. As we must use public money carefully, we will not investigate this complaint as the injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement.
As we are not investigating the substantive matter, it is not a good use of public resources to investigate how the Council dealt with Miss Y’s complaint.
Final decision
We will not investigate Mr Y’s complaint because any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman