Summary: We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint about the Council’s decision not to do works to her vehicle crossover, its responses on the matter and how it dealt with her complaint. It is reasonable for Mrs X to pursue the remedy she seeks in court. Investigation of the Council’s responses would not lead to a different outcome. We do not investigate council complaint-handling where we are not investigating the core matter giving rise to the complaint.

The complaint

1. Mrs X lives in a property with a vehicle crossover as access to her driveway. She complains the Council:
1. has not properly considered and failed to resolve her problems with her vehicle crossover being uneven and too steep;
2. gave contradictory and inconsistent responses to her;
3. delayed in dealing with her complaint.
2. Mrs X says the driveway is unsafe for her elderly father because of its unevenness. She says some cars ‘beach’ on it because of the steepness. Mrs X says she has been caused unnecessary stress from trying to resolve the matter. She wants the Council to fix the crossover.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
4. 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)
5. 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 further investigation would not lead to a different outcome. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))
6. It is not a good use of public resources to investigate complaints about complaint procedures where we are not dealing with the core substantive issue.

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How I considered this complaint

7. I considered information from Mrs X and the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

8. Section 56 of the Highways Act 1980 says a person may serve a notice on a highway authority requiring it to confirm that a road is a highway that it is liable to maintain. If, as appears to be the case here, liability is not disputed and the crossover forms part of the council’s highway, the person can apply to a magistrates’ court if the highways authority does not respond within one month. The court can then order the authority to put the road in proper repair within a reasonable period. If Mrs X considers the Council has not kept the crossover in proper repair, she has the right to take this complaint to court. Her case may mention the crossover’s angle and uneven surface and how she considers these occurred. It would be for the court to decide the extent of the repairs, if any, to be carried out and to set a timescale for the work. It would be reasonable for Mrs X to serve a notice on the Council and take her complaint to court if necessary rather than for us to investigate. This is because the court has powers to instruct the Council to carry out the work, which is the outcome she seeks from her complaint, whereas we have no such powers.
9. We note Mrs X says the Council gave differing responses before reaching its final decision not to do works to the crossover. It is the Council’s final decision which her complaint challenges. Investigation of this part of the complaint would not now lead to a different outcome. As explained above, Mrs X may take this matter to court and it would be reasonable for her to do so to pursue the remedy she wants.
10. We recognise Mrs X has also complained about how the Council dealt with her complaint. We do not investigate councils’ complaint-handling in isolation where we are not investigating the core issue which gave rise to the complaint. It is not a good use of our resources to do so. That limitation applies here so we will not investigate this part of the complaint.

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Final decision

11. We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because:
• it would be reasonable for her to take the core crossover repairs issue to court and pursue the outcome she seeks; and
• investigation of the Council’s responses to the matter would not lead to a different outcome; and
• we do not investigate councils’ complaint-handling where we are not investigating the core matter giving rise to the complaint.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman