The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s handling of Ms X’s dropped kerb or her reports of residents in her area driving over kerbs to access their properties. This is because there is no evidence to suggest fault by the Council or injustice caused to Ms X sufficient to warrant an investigation and because Ms X’s complaint about the installation of her dropped kerb is late and so falls outside our jurisdiction.
The complaint
The complainant, who I refer to as Ms X, says she has been unfairly treated by the Council because she had to arrange and pay for a dropped kerb at her property while the Council has allowed other residents to continue to drive over the kerb to their properties without action being taken against them.
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 may decide not to continue with an investigation if we decide: there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating, or 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)) We cannot investigate late complaints unless we decide there are good reasons. Late complaints are when someone takes more than 12 months to complain to us about something a council has done. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26B and 34D, as amended)
How I considered this complaint
I considered information provided by Ms X and the Council, including its response to her complaint.
I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
Ms X complained to the Council about its handling of matters relating to a dropped kerb she had installed at her property a number of years ago and about its failure to take action against residents in her area who drive over kerbs to get to their properties and who have not been made to pay for a dropped kerb.
The restriction highlighted at paragraph 3 applies to the part of Ms X’s complaint about the installation of her dropped kerb. This matter falls outside our jurisdiction due to the passage of time. The dropped kerb was installed a number of years ago and as we would reasonably have expected Ms X to have complained at the time, there are no grounds to exercise discretion to investigate it now.
With regard to Ms X’s concerns about residents who are driving over the kerb to their properties, there is no evidence to suggest fault by the Council has caused her injustice. It has told her that while it does not have the resources to continually monitor to see which residents are driving over the kerb, Highways will be writing to the occupants of addresses Ms X has identified as accessing their driveway without a dropped kerb to advise them it is an offence, and they should stop doing so or risk a fine.
Ms X may not be satisfied with the Council’s response to her complaint but there is no evidence of fault by the Council or injustice caused to her sufficient to warrant an investigation.
Final decision
We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint because there is no evidence to suggest fault by the Council or injustice caused to Ms X sufficient to warrant an investigation and because Ms X’s complaint about the installation of her dropped kerb is late and so falls outside our jurisdiction.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman