The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about a home to school transport application. There is not enough evidence of fault to warrant investigation.
The complaint
Mrs X complained the Council had not fairly considered her daughter, C’s, home to school transport application.
She says this has resulted in the Council not granting C home to school transport meaning she will have to pay the financial costs.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
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 there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating.
(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B)) We consider whether there was fault in the way an organisation made its decision. If there was no fault in how the organisation made its decision, we cannot question the outcome. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended)
How I considered this complaint
I considered information provided by the complainant.
I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
Mrs X complained the Council had not fairly considered C’s application for home to school transport. She says it has not considered that C is attending a catchment school.
The Council reviewed Mrs X’s application and appeal and decided that C was not attending her nearest catchment school and she could have received a place at this school.
We will not investigate this complaint because there is not enough evidence of fault to warrant further investigation. The Ombudsman is not an appeal body. We look at the processes an organisation followed to make its decision. If we consider it followed those processes correctly, we cannot question whether the decision was right or wrong.
In this case the appeal panel considered Mrs X’s appeal and supporting information. There is not enough evidence of fault in the way the Council considered Mrs X’s appeal to warrant further investigation.
I appreciate Mrs X feels there must be fault in the information provided to her, when she was applying for a school place, because the Council agreed to review its policy. However, I am satisfied the policy contains information on what a catchment is and how it decides transport when there is more than one catchment school. There is not enough evidence of fault to warrant further investigation.
Final decision
We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because there is not enough evidence of fault in how the Council came to its decision.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman