Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about the Council’s maintenance of a cemetery. There is not enough evidence of fault by the Council or of significant personal injustice to justify further investigation.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains the Council is managing the cemetery under the wrong legislation and therefore is not fulfilling its duties properly. He says that it:

• Has failed to keep the cemetery to a good standard of repair.
• Has failed to complete detailed records of burials.
• Has allowed burials to continue once the cemetery was closed, which should not have been done.

2. Mr X also complains about poor complaint handling.
3. Mr X says that this process has caused him deep distress and it has eroded public trust and undermined the community's right to mourn in a respectful space.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

4. 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 injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B).)
5. We cannot investigate late complaints unless we decide there are good reasons. Late complaints are when someone takes more than 12 months to complain to us about something a council has done. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26B and 34D, as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

6. I considered information provided by Mr X and the Council.
7. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

8. Mr X says the Council failed to maintain a cemetery, leaving grounds overgrown and memorials obscured. He says the Council has been managing the site using the wrong legislation. The Council says the cemetery is held under the Open Spaces Act 1906.
9. The Open Spaces Act means a council will manage and maintain a site generally. The Local Authorities' Cemeteries Order (LACO) 1977 gives councils powers to manage and maintain cemeteries and means they have a duty to keep the cemetery grounds, buildings, walls and fences in good order and repair. But it does not impose a duty to do so in a particular way, leaving it broad discretion over how it manages such sites.
10. Mr X says the Council failed to maintain a cemetery, leaving grounds overgrown and memorials obscured because it is managing the site under the wrong legislation. Even if the cemetery should be managed under LACO, the Council has broad discretion in deciding how to maintain and manage the site. There is not enough evidence to find fault in the way the Council has exercised that discretion.
11. In practice, the evidence shows the Council has taken steps to keep the cemetery safe and accessible. It has developed a management plan, with advice from the Wildlife Trust, to balance biodiversity objectives with the cemetery’s function as a place of remembrance. It has also agreed to carry out further improvements, including providing more seating. While Mr X disagrees with the Council’s approach, there is not enough evidence of fault in either its maintenance of the cemetery or its decisions about how the site should be managed.
12. Mr X complains the Council failed to keep detailed cemetery records. The lack of detailed records also does not cause Mr X significant enough personal injustice to warrant further investigation.
13. Mr X says that if the Council correctly managed the cemetery under the Open Spaces Act, then once it was closed no further burials should have taken place. The last recorded burial was 1988. If we were to investigate it there is not enough significant personal injustice to warrant an investigation.
14. We will also not investigate how the Council dealt with Mr X’s complaint as it is not a good use of public resources to investigate complaints about complaint handling when we are not looking at the substantive issue.

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Final decision

15. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because there is not enough evidence of fault by the Council or of a significant personal injustice that would warrant an investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman