Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about how the Council dealt with his reports of rubbish in his local area and how it responded to his complaints. Even if there has been Council fault there is insufficient significant personal injustice caused to Mr X by the matters complained of to warrant an investigation. We do not investigate councils’ complaint-handling where we are not investigating the core issues giving rise to the complaint.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains the Council:
1. closed his reports about poor street cleaning and rubbish in his area’s streets without resolving them;
2. told him to contact owners of any untidy private land to resolve the issues;
3. did not properly investigate his complaints and delayed its complaint process.
2. Mr X says the area where he lives looks dirty, which affects him every day.

Back to top

The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. 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:

• any fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained; or
• any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement.

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

Back to top

How I considered this complaint

4. I considered information from Mr X and the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

Back to top

My assessment

5. The Council says the untidy areas Mr X reported are not its responsibility because it does not own the land. Mr X disputes that all the reports he made were about litter on private land.
6. Even if there has been fault in the way the Council dealt with Mr X’s reports, or fault in it not clearing some areas, we will not investigate. We recognise Mr X’s concern for his area and that he has been affected by seeing some of the streets looking dirty. But the impacts of this and the other matters complained of do not amount to a sufficiently significant personal injustice to him to warrant us investigating here.
7. We note Mr X says he should not be required to pursue any private owners whose land has rubbish on and wants the Council to take action against them. The Council may only become involved where rubbish on private land amounts to a significant public health issue. It is for officers to use their professional judgement to decide whether the information they receive about such land requires them to take action on public health grounds.
8. Mr X considers the Council did not meet its timescales during its complaint process and did not properly respond to his complaints. We do not investigate councils’ complaint-handling in isolation where we are not investigating the core issues giving rise to the complaint. It is not a good use of our resources to do so. That limitation applies here so we will not investigate this part of the complaint.

Back to top

Final decision

9. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because:
• there is insufficient significant personal injustice caused to him by the matters complained of to warrant us investigating; and
• we do not investigate councils’ complaint-handling where we are not investigating the matters giving rise to the complaint.

Back to top

Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman