Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about damage to the complainant’s car from a council vehicle. The Council has accepted liability and an investigation would not achieve anything more.

The complaint

1. The complainant, Mr X, complained a council vehicle damaged his car. Mr X said the Council had not responded to his 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 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:

• we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation, or
• further investigation would not lead to a different outcome, or
• there is no worthwhile outcome achievable by our investigation.

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

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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. We will not start an investigation into Mr X’s complaint.
6. Complaints about damage to property are best resolved by insurers and the courts so we will not normally investigate them. However, in response to our enquiries, the Council said in recognition of its failure to respond to Mr X it would accept liability for the damage. This is the outcome Mr X wanted and so we will not investigate. We could not achieve anything more.

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Final decision

7. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint as we could not achieve anything more.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman