Summary: We will not investigate Mr Q’s complaint about the Council’s delay in ensuring a permanent repair had been done to a handrail at a trampoline centre. Nor will we investigate Mr Q’s complaint that the Council investigated only after he contacted it. This is because the injustice Mr Q suffered is not enough to justify our involvement.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I have called Mr Q, complained about the actions of Basingstoke and Dean Borough Council. He said the Council

• failed to investigate whether a permanent repair had been done to a handrail at a trampoline centre after the Covid-19 lockdown ended; and
• visited the trampoline centre to do its investigation only after he contacted it.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word ‘fault’ to refer to these. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint. I refer to this as ‘injustice’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We may decide not to start or continue with an investigation if we believe the injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered the information Mr Q provided. I considered the information the Council provided. I invited Mr Q to comment on a draft of this decision.

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What I found

What happened

4. Mr Q injured himself on a damaged handrail when he visited a trampoline centre (the Centre) in February 2020. He reported the incident to the Council. When Mr Q heard nothing more, he complained to the Council. It wrote to Mr Q in March 2020 saying an officer had visited the Centre and agreed, with the Centre, that it should modify the handrail to prevent further injuries. An officer visited a few days later and the Centre had done a temporary repair. The officer decided this was enough to prevent injuries until the Centre did a permanent repair.
5. The country then went into Covid-19 lockdown. The Centre closed and an officer’s planned visit later in March did not happen.
6. In September 2020 Mr Q complained to the Council as he had heard nothing more about a permanent repair to the Centre’s handrail. Following Mr Q’s contact an officer visited. The Centre had permanently repaired the handrail. The Council wrote to Mr Q with its findings and apologised if he thought it did not visit quickly enough.

Assessment

7. We will not investigate this complaint.
8. Mr Q has not suggested he visited the Centre again after his visit in February or since lockdown ended. Nor has he suggested he suffered further injury because of the handrail. So his injustice is limited to having to ask the Council for updates about the action it took and to establish whether the Centre had done a permanent repair. I understand Mr Q is dissatisfied he had to do this and that he believes the Council only took action because he reminded it to do so. But the injustice this caused him is not significant enough to justify our involvement.

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Final decision

9. We will not investigate this complaint. This is because the injustice Mr Q suffered is not significant enough to justify our involvement.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman