Summary: The Ombudsman will not investigate Mr X’s complaint that the Council will not compensate him for damage caused to his car by potholes. It is reasonable to expect Mr X to resort to court action for the compensation he seeks and the complaint is therefore outside the Ombudsman’s legal remit.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I shall call Mr X, complains the Council will not pay for repairs to his car after it was damaged by potholes. Mr X also complains the Council ignored his requests to discuss the condition of the road with an officer.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. The law says we cannot normally investigate a complaint when someone could take the matter to court. However, we may decide to investigate if we consider it would be unreasonable to expect the person to go to court. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(6)(c), as amended)
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 injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement. It is also not a good use of public resources to investigate complaints about complaint procedures, if we are unable to deal with the substantive issue (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

4. I have considered what Mr X said in his complaint and I have considered his comments in response to my draft decision.

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What I found

5. Mr X complains the Council will not pay for repairs to his car after it was damaged by potholes. Mr X also complains that the Council failed to engage with him to discuss the condition of the road in question. Mr X says his complaint about this has been brushed under the carpet.

Assessment

6. The Ombudsman cannot determine if the Council is legally liable for the damage caused to Mr X’s car or whether it should pay compensation. Ultimately, only the courts can do this. There is a low cost procedure open to anyone to make a money claim through the courts or Mr X could consider using a ‘no win no fee’ solicitor.
7. For these reasons, it is reasonable to expect Mr X to resort to court action and the complaint is therefore outside our legal remit and we will not investigate this complaint.
8. We will not investigate how the Council handled Mr X’s complaint that it failed to engage with him to discuss the condition of the road. This is because this does not cause Mr X a level of injustice that would warrant our investigation of this as a separate matter.

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Final decision

9. My decision is that the Ombudsman should not investigate this complaint. This is because it is reasonable to expect Mr X to resort to court action for the compensation and road improvements he seeks. The complaint is therefore outside the Ombudsman’s legal remit. We will not investigate the Council’s complaint handling, as a separate matter, as this does not cause Mr X a significant level of personal injustice.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman