Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s decision not to provide a headstone for the complainant’s relative. This is because there is insufficient evidence of fault by the Council.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I refer to as Mr X, complains the Council will not provide a headstone for a relative. Mr X says the Council stole his relative’s life and has a duty to provide a headstone.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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 an investigation if we decide there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))
3. It is our decision whether to start, and when to end an investigation into something the law allows us to investigate. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 24A(6) and 34B(8), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

4. I considered information provided by Mr X and the Council. This includes the correspondence about the grave, an insurance claim and the headstone. I also considered our Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. Mr X asked the Council for help in finding where a relative is buried; she died and was buried in the 1990s. The Council helped Mr X find the grave. The Council explained she is buried in a plot with other relatives; there is no headstone to mark the grave. The Council told Mr X what he needed to do if he wanted to mark the grave with a headstone.
6. Mr X says the Council should provide a headstone. Mr X says the relative was placed in a hospital when she was a teenager and stayed there until her death when she was in her 70s. Mr X says the Council ‘stole her life”. Mr X made an insurance claim seeking provision of a headstone.
7. The Council’s insurers declined the claim and the Council declined to provide a headstone.
8. I will not start an investigation because there is insufficient evidence of fault by the Council. People can, under certain circumstances, get consent from the Council to buy and place a headstone on a grave. The Council does not provide free headstones.
9. It is unfortunate the relative spent most of her life in hospital but, as the decision to admit her happened about 80 to 90 years ago, it is not known which authority made the decision. In addition, decisions made so long ago were made against different standards than those that exist today and the law does not allow us to investigate matters that occurred before 1974.
10. Further, even if the Council was involved in any decision to keep the relative in hospital after 1974, that does not mean the current council is required to provide a headstone. And, we have no power to make the Council provide a headstone.
11. Finally, the documents show the Council did a lot to try to help Mr X when he made his initial enquiry about finding the grave and trying to find out what had happened.

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Final decision

12. We will not investigate this complaint because there is insufficient evidence of fault by the Council.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman