Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council failing to provide school transport for the first three days of the school term in September 2022. Investigation by us would be unlikely to achieve the outcome Miss X is seeking.

The complaint

1. Miss X said the Council failed to provide the agreed taxi service to take her daughter to school. She said the Council’s failings had severe impact on her daughter at school. She wanted the Council to reimburse her for the time she had to take off work and for not doing its job and not answering the questions she asked it.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. The Ombudsman investigates 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:

• 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))

3. The law says we cannot normally investigate a complaint when someone could take the matter to court. However, we may decide to investigate if we consider it would be unreasonable to expect the person to go to court. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(6)(c), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

4. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
5. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

6. The correspondence Miss X provided shows the Council failed to provide the agreed taxi transport for Miss X’s daughter on the first three days of the new school term. The child attends a special school and the distance to school is significant. The child remained at home with Miss X, and she could not work for three days. The Council apologised for its error and offered to reimburse any transport costs Miss X might have incurred, but no more.
7. We do not investigate where doing so would be unlikely to be productive and we do not recommend sums of compensation or damages, which are matters for a court, but only token payments to remedy injustice. Given the Council has apologised and offered to repay any out-of-pocket transport fees Miss X incurred, we would not investigate to establish the exact cause of the administrative error that led to her daughter being wrongly left off the Council’s transport list. We could not establish that transport being missed for three days was the sole cause of any lasting deterioration of Miss X’s daughter’s performance at school.

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Final decision

8. We will not investigate Miss X’s complaint because doing so would be unlikely to lead to a significantly different outcome, or the outcome Miss X is seeking. She has a right to go to court it would be reasonable to use if she wishes to claim damages in the form of lost earnings.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman