The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about how the Council has dealt with her concerns about a lack of accessibility in parks and on the public highways. This is because there is insufficient evidence that the complainant has suffered a significant personal injustice.
The complaint
Ms X complaint is about the Council’s approach to accessibility in its parks and on its highways. Ms X wants the Council to provide a better service, to make changes to parks and roads and for better public consultation on policy changes. Ms X also complains about how the Council has dealt with her requests for information and her complaints about these matters.
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: 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 there is another body better placed to consider this complaint.
(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B)) The Information Commissioner's Office considers complaints about freedom of information. Its decision notices may be appealed to the First Tier Tribunal (Information Rights). So where we receive complaints about freedom of information, we normally consider it reasonable to expect the person to refer the matter to the Information Commissioner.
How I considered this complaint
I considered information provided by the complainant.
I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
The Ombudsman will not normally investigate a complaint unless there is good reason to believe the complainant has suffered a significant personal injustice as a direct result of the actions or inactions of the Council. This means that we will normally only investigate a complaint where the service user has suffered serious loss, harm, or distress as a direct result of faults or failures by the Council.
We will not normally investigate a complaint where the complainant is using their enquiry to raise a wider community campaign. In these cases, their concerns may be better addressed to their local councillor or their MP.
I do not consider that Ms X has suffered significant personal injustice from the issues she has raised. She is complaining about the Council’s general approach to accessibility in parks and on the public highways rather than a specific action by the Council that has directly affected her. These matters are better addressed either to her local councillor or MP.
The Council has responded to her requests for information and is not obliged to address every point she makes. It has said it has provided her with all the information it has. If Ms X feels the Council is withholding information, she has a right to see she can make a Freedom of Information request and then approach the Information Commissioner if dissatisfied with its response.
Finally, I will not investigate how the Council dealt with Ms X’s complaint. This is because it is not a good use of public resources to investigate complaint handling when we have decided not to investigate the substantive issues raised in a complaint.
Final decision
We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint because the issues raised have not caused her a significant personal injustice.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman