The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint about fault in the Council’s implementation of its home to school transport policy. This is because the matter complained about has not caused Ms X any significant personal injustice which is serious enough to warrant an investigation.
The complaint
Ms X complains the Council has made several serious mistakes in the implementation of its current home to school transport policy. Ms X says this has impacted several of her close friends and their children. She says it also affects all residents due to the impact of more parents having to drive their children to school because they have been told their children do not qualify for school transport.
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’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We do not start an investigation if we decide the tests set out in our Assessment Code are not met. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended) We do not start 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))
How I considered this complaint
I considered information provided by the complainant.
I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
Ms X complained to the Council about the matters set out in paragraph one, above.
The Council told Ms X it would not consider her complaint. This is because Ms X had not shown that she was using the service nor that she had been directly affected by the alleged fault and so it did not justify an investigation. It explained it would consider a complaint from any parent or family who had been personally affected by the issues raised in the complaint.
We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint. This is because the matter complained about has not caused Ms X any significant personal injustice which is serious enough to warrant an investigation. We do not investigate every complaint we receive and we must focus our limited public resources on investigating those complaints where a person has suffered a significant personal injustice as a result of alleged fault by a body in our jurisdiction. This is not the case here.
Final decision
We will not investigate this complaint. This is because the matter complained about has not caused Ms X any significant personal injustice which is serious enough to warrant an investigation.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman