The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s decision on where it places pedestrian crossing facilities. This is because the complaint does not meet the tests in our Assessment Code on how we decide which complaints to investigate. There is no significant injustice and there is no worthwhile outcome achievable by our investigation.
The complaint
Mr X complained because he believed there was insufficient pedestrian crossing facilities on a main road he uses. Mr X, as a pedestrian, said he was inconvenienced by this. Mr X was also unhappy with the Council’s consideration of his complaint, and this frustrated him.
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, or we cannot achieve the outcome someone wants, or there is no worthwhile outcome achievable by our investigation.
(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 I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
Final decision
We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because there is no significant injustice and there is no worthwhile outcome we can achieve by investigating.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman