Summary: We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint about how the Council handled her dropped kerb installation. This is because there is not enough evidence of fault to justify an investigation by the Ombudsman.

The complaint

1. Mrs X complains the Council stopped installing her dropped kerb and asked her to pay for the removal of tree roots and re-routing of utility cables.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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 there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. Mrs X complained to the Council about it asking her to pay for a utility cable to be re-routed, partway through installing a dropped kerb.
6. The Council said National Grid was responsible for the cable and decided it should be moved. It said Mrs X should pay to re-route the cable because it was being moved to install her dropped kerb.
7. Mrs X said that the cable was wrapped around a tree stump which she had previously reported to Highways as a safety concern. She says that the Council should pay for the cable to be re-routed as it would have to do this as part of work to fix this.
8. The Council said the reported issue did not mean that it would have removed the stump and therefore had to pay for the cable to be re-routed. It said it had previously decided to tarmac the area to fix the issue. It said the cable was being re-routed because of the installation of the dropped kerb, and therefore Mrs X should pay.
9. I will not investigate this complaint. The Council has acted in line with its policy. Our role is not to ask whether an organisation could have done things better, or whether we agree or disagree with what it did. Instead, we look at whether there was fault in how it made its decisions. If we decide there was no fault in how it did so, we cannot ask whether it should have made a particular decision or say it should have reached a different outcome.

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Final decision

10. We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because there is not enough evidence of fault.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman