The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about highway maintenance because any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement and the courts are better placed to deal with the matter.
The complaint
Mr Y complained the Council failed to properly carry out road maintenance works, including not providing adequate notice of works, using too thick a covering of top dressing on the road surface and then failed to properly respond to his complaint correspondence.
Mr Y says the roadworks caused him inconvenience, led to dust covering his front garden, property and vehicle, which he and his wife have had to spend time cleaning.
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, or there is another body better placed to consider this complaint. (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
The Council’s complaint response shows that it upheld Mr Y’s complaint about a lack of communication prior to work on his road taking place as while signs had been put in place, it could not confirm that letters had been delivered to each address on the road by its contractor, to warn of the upcoming work. It has apologised to Mr Y and agreed to raise the matter with the contractor acting on its behalf.
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 inconvenience he says was caused, any remaining injustice following the Council’s apology, is not significant enough to justify investigating, so we will not investigate this complaint.
The complaint correspondence shows Mr Y has also made a claim to the Council for the impact on his property and vehicle from the covering of dust after he says a covering of top dressing was laid too thickly.
The legislation from which the Ombudsman takes their power also places some restrictions on what we may investigate. One of these concerns negligence claims about damage to property or personal injury. We cannot determine liability claims for negligence. These are legal claims which may only be determined by insurers or the courts.
We are not able to decide liability or award damages. Consequently, any claim for damages, such as costs, which Mr Y considers the Council to be responsible for, are matters more appropriately dealt with by the courts and insurers, as Mr Y has started to do. We will not investigate this complaint.
As we are not investigating the substantive issues of this complaint, it is not a good use of public money to investigate how the Council dealt with and communicated about the complaint. Consequently, 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