Summary: Mr B says the Council failed to act to ensure its online reporting service works properly. There is no fault in how the Council dealt with Mr B’s concerns.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I shall refer to as Mr B, complained the Council failed to act to ensure its online reporting service works properly. Mr B says this means he has been unable to effectively raise issues.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. The Ombudsman investigates complaints of injustice caused by maladministration and service failure. I have used the word fault to refer to these. The Ombudsman cannot question whether a Council’s decision is right or wrong simply because Mr B disagrees with it. He must consider whether there was fault in the way the decision was reached. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3))
3. We cannot investigate something that affects all or most of the people in a Council’s area. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(7), as amended)
4. If we are satisfied with a Council’s actions or proposed actions, we can complete our investigation and issue a decision statement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 30(1B) and 34H(i), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

5. As part of the investigation, I have:
• considered the complaint and Mr B's comments;
• made enquiries of the Council and considered the comments and documents the Council provided.
6. Mr B and the Council had an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I considered any comments received before making a final decision.

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What I found

7. Mr B says the Council failed to act to ensure its online reporting service works properly. Mr B says the online service does not connect to the various departments and therefore his ability to track issues he has raised is compromised. Mr B says this is an ongoing issue and has not been resolved by the Council.
8. The evidence I have seen satisfies me the issue Mr B is concerned about relates to the Council’s website, introduced in 2015, which included an online report it tool. I understand Mr B’s concern about not being able to contact specific departments directly through the Council’s report it website and the fact he cannot track what is happening with each report he has made through the website. However, the documentary evidence I have seen satisfies me this is because the initial report it function the Council introduced did not include the tracking process Mr B would like. I understand this is an area the Council would like to introduce over time but that will necessarily be subject to financial constraints. I am satisfied the limitations of the service were explained to Mr B as early as 2017. As the Council’s online report it service was not introduced with the intention for customers to be able to track the progress of reports I could not say the Council was at fault here.
9. The evidence I have seen satisfies me the issues with the report it system have not prevented Mr B raising concerns about many different departments though. As I said in the previous paragraph, the current website design does not allow residents to track the progress of the issues they have raised. I also recognise different departments work in different ways which affects the information recorded on the website. I cannot comment on the Council’s design of the website as that affects all residents in the same way. For the reasons set out in paragraph 3, that is therefore not a matter the Ombudsman can comment on. I am, however, satisfied the Council has provided Mr B with contact details for the relevant departments. The documentary evidence shows Mr B has been able to obtain updates from those departments as well as from other officers. I recognise from Mr B’s point of view this is a clumsy way to proceed and it would be easier for him if the website provided a functionality that allowed real-time updates once work was completed. For the reasons I have already given though, I cannot criticise the Council for that. As I am satisfied the current process allows Mr B to raise concerns and to contact the relevant department for updates where he remains concerned that work has not been undertaken I have no grounds to criticise the Council.
10. I recognise though Mr B has also had difficulty logging onto the system to check his customer account. Added to that Mr B has reported issues with the status of complaints recorded on his customer account not matching the status of those concerns. I am satisfied the Council followed those issues up with Mr B as it arranged for its IT officers to speak to him in June 2021 to investigate the issues. The evidence I have seen satisfies me the Council has identified what it thinks is the issue with the inaccurate recording of the outcome of complaints on Mr B’s customer account and has arranged for those anomalies to be amended when Mr B has highlighted them. I welcome that. For the issues Mr B has with logging onto the system I note the Council was due to introduce a new system in November 2021 which was intended to address some of the underlying performance issues. While that was not a response to Mr B’s issues specifically, I am satisfied this shows the Council has the website issues under review to address problems with the system. In light of all of that I do not consider there are grounds for the Ombudsman to find the Council at fault.

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Final decision

11. I have completed my investigation and do not uphold the complaint.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman