Cheshire East Council (19 012 591)
Category : Environment and regulation > Other
Decision : Closed after initial enquiries
Decision date : 13 Dec 2019
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: The Ombudsman will not investigate Mr X’s complaint that he was accused of littering. This is because the injustice caused to Mr X is not sufficient to warrant our involvement.
The complaint
- The complainant, whom I shall call Mr X, complains a Council officer wrongly accused him of littering.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
- 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)
How I considered this complaint
- I have considered what Mr X said in his complaint and the Council’s complaint responses, which it has sent to me. I have considered Mr X’s response to my draft decision.
What I found
- Mr X complains a Council officer accused him of littering, saying he had seen Mr X putting out his cigarette in a non designated area. Mr X stated he had not done so, and took the officer to the cigarette bin where Mr X had disposed of the cigarette. Mr X says he felt harassed and humiliated by the officer.
- The Council says its officer had reason to believe that Mr X had littered, until Mr X showed him where he had disposed of the cigarette. The Council has apologised to Mr X for any upset caused.
Assessment
- While I appreciate Mr X remains upset at what happened, from our perspective, he is caused insufficient injustice from his complaint to warrant our involvement.
Final decision
- My decision is that the Ombudsman should not investigate this complaint. This is because the remaining injustice to Mr X is not at a level that would warrant our involvement.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman