Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s response toa report of encroachment onto its land. This is because there is insufficient evidence of fault on the Council’s part causing the complainants injustice to warrant the Ombudsman’s intervention.

The complaint

1. The complainants, who I will refer to as Mrs X and Mr Y, complain that the Council was at fault in its response to Mr Y’s report of encroachment on Council-owned land by his neighbour, in investigating the matter and in its response to Mrs X’s subsequent complaint.

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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 effect on the person making the complaint, which we call ‘injustice’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We may decide not to start an investigation if the tests set out in our Assessment Code are not met. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. In June 2021 Mr Y reported to the Council that his neighbour had moved his fence into an area of amenity woodland, treating the area as an extension of his property for his private use. The Council investigated the matter and closed the case in June 2022, on the basis that the fence had been returned to the correct boundary.
6. Mrs X and Mr Y are critical of the Council’s actions during the investigation. They argue that the matter was a relatively simple one and should not have taken a year to determine, necessitating the expenditure of significant public resources. Mrs X also contends that the Council failed to respond properly to her subsequent complaint.
7. The substantive matter is essentially a boundary dispute between the Council and the neighbour, to which Mrs X and Mr Y were not party. The outcome was that the encroachment has ended. The question for me is whether the conduct of the investigation and length of time it took amounted to fault, and whether that fault itself caused Mrs X and Mr Y so significant an injustice as to warrant investigation by the Ombudsman.
8. When dealing with disputes of this nature, it is reasonable for the Council to take a measured and incremental approach, in order to minimise the need for formal enforcement action. This investigation took a year. There are no grounds for me to criticise the length of time it took unless there is evidence that this had the consequence of causing Mrs X and Mr Y a significant injustice.
9. In this regard, I note that Mrs X and Mr Y contend that the Council’s expenditure of money and officer time on what they regard as a straightforward matter was disproportionate. I cannot consider this. The use of public resources affects all or most of the residents of the Council’s area and, by law, falls outside the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction. There is no discretion available to us here. Other than this, I can see no grounds to find that the length of time the Council’s action took caused Mrs X and Mr Y a significant injustice. There are therefore no grounds for us to pursue the complaint.
10. It is not a good use of public resources to investigate complaints about complaint procedures, if we are unable to deal with the substantive issue. We will not therefore consider how the Council responded to Mrs X’s complaint.

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Final decision

11. We will not investigate Mrs X and Mr Y’s complaint because there is insufficient evidence of fault causing injustice.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman