The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about street cleanliness because any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement.
The complaint
Mr Y complained the Council has failed to monitor his street for cleanliness. Mr Y says the Council says checks are made but he does not believe this, as he has been told the cleaner for his road is on long-term sick and following a Freedom of Information request to the Council, he was told the records of these checks are not retained. He is also unhappy with the Council’s response to his complaint.
Mr Y says the problem leads to the street being unhygienic, with occasionally trip hazards and overgrown weeds which he says encourages foxes.
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 Mr Y provided and the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
Mr Y says the failure to monitor and maintain records of the monitoring of his street for cleanliness means his road is unhygienic, sometimes has trip hazards and overgrown weeds and encourages foxes.
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.
While Mr Y may feel strongly about the issue, he has not suffered a serious loss or harm as a result of the alleged fault. Consequently, we will not investigate his complaint.
As we are not investigating the substantive issue, it is not a good use of public funds to investigate how the Council responded and dealt with Mr Y’s complaint. We will not investigate.
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