Summary: Mr X complains a Council road sweeper did not remove piles of leaves from his road. We will not investigate as the injustice to Mr X is not significant enough to justify our involvement.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains a Council’s road sweeper failed to remove a pile of leaves in his street. Mr X says the wet leaves posed a danger to pedestrians.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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, or it is unlikely we could add to any previous investigation by the Council (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

3. I have considered what Mr X said in his complaint and sent him my draft decision on it for his comments.

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What I found

4. Mr X complained to the Council that its road sweeper vehicle failed to remove piles of leaves on his street. Mr X says the road is on an incline with some steps and the wet leaves posed a danger to pedestrians.
5. The Council said some of the leaves were near a parked car and it was at the discretion of the vehicle driver to decide if he could safely remove the leaves, given the proximity of the parked car. The Council has said though that the driver was spoken to, to stress he could have requested the attendance of other staff to manually remove the leaves.
6. Mr X does not accept the Council’s explanation and says no explanation was given as to why the other leaf piles were not removed. Mr X wants further assurance that the road sweeper driver has been spoken to and that this won’t happen again.

Analysis

7. From our perspective, the injustice caused to Mr X from his complaint is not sufficient to warrant our involvement.
8. The Council says advice was given to the driver about seeking assistance when leaves cannot be accessed by the vehicle. It is unlikely we can add to this.
9. For these reasons, we will not investigate.

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Final decision

10. We will not investigate this complaint. This is because the injustice to Mr X is not significant and it is unlikely we can add to what the Council has already said.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman