Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the way the Council removed plants from a public site. This is because any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement.

The complaint

1. Ms Y complains the Council removed plants from a site which provided food for caterpillars.
2. Ms Y says this has caused her distress seeing caterpillars die because their food has been removed.

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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 injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), section 34(B))
4. We will not usually investigate complaint handling if we are not investigating the rest of the complaint. This is because there is not usually enough injustice to justify us doing so. We collect information about particularly poor complaint handling practice and report this back to organisations. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), section 34B(8))

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How I considered this complaint

5. I considered information provided by Ms Y.
6. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

7. The law means we can choose only to investigate a complaint where the person has suffered serious loss, harm, or distress as a direct result of faults or failures by the body complained about. We will not normally investigate a complaint where the alleged loss or injustice is not a serious or significant matter.
8. I recognise the circumstances of Ms Y’s complaint have distressed her as she is concerned about biodiversity and the welfare of the caterpillars, but this is not a significant enough personal injustice to justify investigating.
9. We will not investigate the way the Council handled the complaint and correspondence here because we are satisfied it did not cause enough separate injustice to warrant it.

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Final decision

10. We will not investigate this complaint because any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman