Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about highway repair and maintenance because any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement.

The complaint

1. Mr Y complains the Council has repeatedly resurfaced the road outside his home, which has led to the kerb being below the road surface, thus allowing grit and road debris onto his property.
2. Mr Y says the issue is causing his driveway to flood and is filling the driveway's drainage with grit.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

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 any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))
4. We will not usually investigate complaint handling if we are not investigating the rest of the complaint. This is because there is not usually enough injustice to justify us doing so. We collect information about particularly poor complaint handling practice and report this back to organisations. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), section 34B(8))

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How I considered this complaint

5. I considered information Mr Y and the Council provided and the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

6. Our role is to consider complaints where the person bringing the complaint has suffered significant personal injustice as a direct result of the actions or inactions of the organisation. This means we will normally only investigate a complaint where the complainant has suffered a serious loss, harm or distress as a direct result of faults or failures. We will not normally investigate a complaint where the alleged loss of injustice is not a serious or significant matter.
7. In this case, while Mr Y may feel strongly about the matter, his injustice is not a serious loss, harm or distress. Consequently, there is not significant enough to justify our involvement.
8. As we are not investigating the substantive matter, it is not a good use of public resources, which we must use carefully, to investigate how the Council dealt with Mr Y’s complaint. We will not investigate.

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Final decision

9. We will not investigate Mr Y’s complaint because any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman