Summary: We will not investigate Ms Y’s complaint about the land surrounding her burial plot in a mausoleum. This is because the complaint does not meet the tests in our Assessment Code on how we decide which complaints to investigate. There is no evidence of fault by the Council, which would warrant our involvement.

The complaint

1. Ms Y says the Council has gone back on an oral agreement to allow her family to purchase land in front of her and her late husband’s burial plots in a mausoleum. Ms Y says this land has now been allocated to members of another religious community.
2. Ms Y says the Council has now gone back on its promise to plant and maintain a hedgerow between the mausoleum and the land.
3. Ms Y also says the Council has failed to keep the graves in the mausoleum clean and tidy. She says it was agreed newly dug graves would be covered in green to avoid dust blowing over to the mausoleum, but this has not happened.

Back to top

The Ombudsman’s role and powers

4. 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:

• there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating, 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))

Back to top

How I considered this complaint

5. I considered information provided by Ms Y and the Council.
6. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
7. Ms Y has now had an opportunity to comment on my draft decision.

Back to top

My assessment

8. Members of the public are able to buy burial rights in council cemeteries, not rights to the land itself. Any terms and conditions applying to the burial rights is set out in the relevant written agreement. When considering complaints, we cannot rely on claimed oral agreements. Even if a council says at one point land in a cemetery is available for burial plots generally or for a particular community it can change its decision or intention.
9. Ms Y admits there was only oral discussion about agreement to sell the land in front of the mausoleum to her family. We could not therefore say whether any agreement exists. We also would not be able to make the Council sell Ms Y’s family land that has already been allocated to other people.
10. The Council is also entitled to reverse decisions it made if it thinks there are good reasons. In this case it has made it clear once the proposed hedgerow grows it would be liable for the cost of maintenance and it would take up more of the limited space than the Council could accept. It is not for us to question the merits of its decision or reasoning. The Council has already apologised for reversing its decision, and further investigation into this would not lead to a different outcome.
11. The Council has already upheld Ms Y’s complaint about the graves in the mausoleum being dirty and promised it would maintain the area twice a year. It also accepted it had not always covered newly dug graves and it has committed to do so properly in future. As the Council only upheld this complaint in March 2021 not enough time has passed for us to say it should now do more than it has promised.

Back to top

Final decision

12. We will not investigate this complaint. This is because there is not enough evidence of fault to justify our involvement and we could not achieve the outcome Ms Y wants.

Investigator’s decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

Back to top

Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman