The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about a travel pass because there is not enough significant injustice to justify investigation.
The complaint
Mr Y complained the Council failed to provide an adequate response to his query about the length of time his disabled persons travel pass would last. Mr Y says the pass he has been given will only last for two years, despite him having a degenerative health condition and he will need to reapply in future. He is also unhappy with the Council’s complaints policy, which he says focuses solely on appealing a decision.
Mr Y says the issue has caused him emotional upset and inconvenience.
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 fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained, or 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 Mr 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.
In this case, Mr Y has not suffered a serious loss, harm or inconvenience which would justify our investigation. While he may like an explanation, this is not so significant as to justify our involvement and any later application has not occurred. We will not investigate.
As we are not investigating the substantive issue, it would not be a good use of public funds to investigate the Council’s complaints handling or procedure. We will not investigate.
Final decision
We will not investigate Mr Y ’s complaint because there is not enough significant injustice to justify investigating.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman