Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s response to boundary maintenance. Parts of Mrs X’s complaint are late and there is no worthwhile outcome achievable by us investigating.

The complaint

1. Mrs X complained because the Council did not make good on an earlier commitment to repair part of a fence that ran alongside her boundary owned by the Council. She was also unhappy the Council did not agree to repair part of her fence, despite evidence she believed she had, that it had repaired her neighbour’s fence.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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)
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 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

4. I considered information provided by the complainant and I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. Mrs X said the Council previously committed to repairing part of a fence it was responsible for. She said these discussions occurred in 2019-2020. We will not investigate these matters, because they are late and there are no good reasons why Mrs X could not have raised them with us sooner.
6. Mrs X also said she wanted the Council to repair her own fence, because she believed the Council had done so in the case of several of her neighbours. The Council replied to Mrs X saying it was satisfied she was responsible for the maintenance of the fence on her border.
7. Notwithstanding Mrs X’s view about whether the Council repaired another property owner’s fence, we will not investigate her complaint here, because we could not direct the Council it has to carry out work it does not believe it is liable for. Therefore, there is no worthwhile outcome achievable.

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Final decision

We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because parts of it are late and there is no worthwhile outcome achievable by us investigating.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman