Summary: The Ombudsman will not investigate Mr B’s complaint the Council charges non-residents more for allotment plots and does not apply any discounts. The complaint is late and there are no good reasons for the Ombudsman to exercise his discretion and now investigate.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I shall call Mr B, lives one house outside the boundary of the London Borough of Enfield. He complains he is charged a non-resident rate for his allotment, and the Council will not apply any age or disability discounts to his allotment charges because he does not live in the Borough. Mr B complains the allotments are becoming unaffordable because he is charged so much more than his neighbours.

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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 cannot investigate late complaints unless we decide there are good reasons. Late complaints are when someone takes more than 12 months to complain to us about something a council has done. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26B and 34D, as amended)
4. We investigate complaints of injustice caused by ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. I have used the word ‘fault’ to refer to these. We cannot question whether a council’s decision is right or wrong simply because the complainant disagrees with it. We must consider whether there was fault in the way the decision was reached. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

5. I have considered the information provided by Mr B’s representative, Ms A. I sent a draft decision to Ms A and invited comments before I made my final decision.

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What I found

6. Ms A first raised her concerns about the different allotment fees for residents and non-residents in 2016. The complaint is therefore late as Mr B and Ms A have known about the issue they are complaining about for more than 12 months. The restriction in paragraph 3 applies.
7. I do not consider there are any good reasons for the Ombudsman to exercise his discretion and now investigate this late complaint. This is because further consideration of the complaint is unlikely to find fault by the Council.
8. While he lives very close to the boundary, Mr B does not live in the Borough of Enfield. The Council has therefore applied the correct charge in line with its published annual allotment prices.

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Final decision

9. The Ombudsman will not investigate this complaint. This is because the complaint is late and there are no good reasons for the Ombudsman to exercise his discretion and now investigate.

Investigator’s final decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman