Summary: The Ombudsman will not investigate this complaint that the Council failed to repair potholes the complainant had reported. It is reasonable to expect the complainant to have contacted us within 12 months of first reporting the potholes to the Council, and he has not suffered a significant injustice as a result of any failure to repair them.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I refer to as Mr B, says the Council failed to repair potholes in parking bays outside a parade of shops.

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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’. In this statement, I have used the word ‘fault’ to refer to these. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint. I refer to this as ‘injustice’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We may decide not to start or continue with an investigation if we believe:

• the fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained, or
• the injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement, or

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)

4. And 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)

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How I considered this complaint

5. I have considered:
• Mr B’s complaint to the Ombudsman;
• The complaint correspondence between Mr B and the Council.
6. I also gave Mr B the opportunity to comment on a draft version of this statement.

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What I found

7. The 12-month time restriction detailed in paragraph 4 above applies to Mr B’s complaint. This is because he first reported these potholes to the Council in March 2018, and then again in April and May 2018. Yet Mr B did not contact the Ombudsman until November 2019; approximately 20 months after he first reported the problem to the Council. I am unaware of any reasons why Mr B was prevented from contacting us sooner if he remained unhappy that the potholes had not been repaired.
8. In addition, and with reference to paragraph 3 above, I have seen no evidence to suggest that Mr B has suffered a significant personal injustice as a result of the alleged failure to repair the potholes.
9. For the above reasons, I do not consider the Ombudsman should investigate Mr B’s complaint.

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Final decision

10. The Ombudsman will not investigate Mr B’s complaint. This is because it is reasonable to expect him to have contacted the Ombudsman sooner, and he has not suffered a significant personal injustice as a result of the alleged fault by the Council.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman