Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about Council owned trees near his property. There is not enough evidence of fault in the Council’s decision-making to justify us investigating further.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains about the Council’s response to his concerns about overhanging tree branches potentially causing damage to his and his neighbours property if not pruned. Mr X is unhappy with the Council’s complaint responses and its failure to agree to a site meeting or to prune the overhanging branches. He wants a formal apology from the Chief Executive and a meeting with senior arboriculture management with a proposal to deal with the overhanging branches.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
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 there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))
4. If there was no fault in how the organisation made its decision, we cannot question the outcome. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

5. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
6. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

7. The Council’s Tree Policy published online says it will carry out works where necessary on Council owned trees. Necessary circumstances include trees obstructing footpaths or roads, touching or damaging buildings or proven to be causing significant structural damage. The Council’s policy also explains it will not maintain trees to prevent branches overhanging property.
8. The Council has explained it has inspected the trees causing Mr X and his neighbour concern and found their condition is ‘fair’ and do not currently require works. The Council has also explained Mr X’s common law right to prune any part of the trees overhanging his property boundary, provided no Tree Preservation Orders (TPO) are in place. The Council provided information about how Mr X could request permission to prune trees subject to TPOs. The Council also apologised to Mr X for the significant delay in responding to his stage two complaint about this matter.
9. We are not an appeal body. This means we do not take a second look at a Council’s decision to decide if it was wrong. Instead, we look at the process an organisation followed to make its decision. The Council’s process in deciding not to undertake works on the trees in this case included professional inspections and applying its published policy. There is not enough evidence of fault in how the Council made its decision to warrant an investigation. We realise Mr X disagrees with the decision, but this itself is not evidence of fault.
10. Mr X is also unhappy with the way the Council dealt with his complaint and its delayed response to his stage two complaint. It is not a good use of public resources for us to look at the Council’s complaint handling and communication if we are not going to look at the substantive issue complained about. We also note the Council’s apology to Mr X for the delay. We will not therefore investigate this issue separately.

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Final decision

11. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because there is not enough evidence of fault to warrant an investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman