The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: Mr X complains about the Council’s delay in ensuring screening is installed for a flue on the roof top of a building opposite his property. We will not investigate the complaint because an investigation is unlikely to add to the Council’s own investigation or lead to a different outcome and the injustice caused to Mr X is limited.
The complaint
Mr X complains about the Council’s delay in ensuring screening is installed for a flue on the roof top of a building opposite his property. He says the flue was installed without planning permission over four years ago and that his complaints to the Council about the matter have been ignored.
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 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) 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, or any fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained, or any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement, or we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation, or further investigation would not lead to a different outcome, or we cannot achieve the outcome someone wants. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))
How I considered this complaint
I considered information provided by the complainant, including the Council’s recent response to his complaint.
I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
I gave the complainant the opportunity to comment on my draft decision and considered what he said.
My assessment
For four years Mr X has been pursuing the matter of an unscreened flue installed on a building opposite his property. He had been told by the Council in 2021 that screening would be installed without delay but the matter is still outstanding. The Council has recently explained to Mr X that the screening planned for the roof top had been found to be unsuitable and that an alternative option is now being considered.
The restriction highlighted at paragraph 3 applies to past events as we would reasonably have expected Mr X to have pursued a complaint with us at the time and there are insufficient grounds to warrant exercising discretion to investigate them now.
The Council has explained to Mr X the course of action it is now intending to take and while it cannot yet provide an accurate timescale before the solution is finalised because further design work is required, an investigation by the Ombudsman is unlikely to usefully add to the Council’s own investigation or lead to a different outcome.
Moreover, although Mr X has clearly spent time and effort pursuing matters with the Council, and he can see the unscreened flue from his property, his injustice is limited and insufficient to warrant an investigation by the Ombudsman.
Final decision
We will not investigate this complaint. This is because an investigation is unlikely to add to the Council’s own investigation or lead to a different outcome and the injustice caused to Mr X is limited.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman