North Somerset Council (19 017 873)
Category : Environment and regulation > Refuse and recycling
Decision : Closed after initial enquiries
Decision date : 21 Feb 2020
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: The Ombudsman will not investigate Mr J’s complaint that a refuse lorry damaged a grass verge outside his property because there is not enough evidence of injustice to warrant an investigation.
The complaint
- Mr J complains a refuse lorry working for the Council damaged a grass verge outside his property. Mr J also complains the Council did not respond to his complaint.
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 J said in his complaint and his comments on a draft of this decision.
What I found
- Mr J says a refuse lorry working for the Council damaged a grass verge outside his property. Mr J says he complained to the Council in November 2019 because the contractor did not contact him about the damage. Mr J is unhappy that the Council has not replied to his complaint.
- Mr J says he repaired the damage to the grass verge. Because of this, Mr J says there is no real injustice to him. However, even if Mr J had not repaired the damage, there is not enough evidence of injustice to warrant an investigation.
- I note Mr J says the Council did not reply to his complaint. 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. So I do not propose to investigate this point.
Final decision
- The Ombudsman will not investigate this complaint because there is not enough evidence of injustice to warrant an investigation.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman