Summary: We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint about the Council’s actions relating to disabled parking provision. Parts of the complaint are late and of the remaining parts, there is no worthwhile outcome we can achieve.

The complaint

1. Mrs X said in 2020, the Council said it would place a disabled parking bay near her home. Mrs X recontacted the Council in 2024 and was unhappy with the Council’s explanation for why it still had not done so.
2. Mrs X said because she is a person with a disability, the Council’s actions have caused her inconvenience, and she believes it has treated her unfairly.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. 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)

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 no worthwhile outcome achievable by our investigation. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

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How I considered this complaint

4. I considered information provided by Mrs X and the Council.
5. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

6. Mrs X wrote to the Council in 2019 and 2020 asking for it to place a disabled parking bay near her home, for her use. We will not look at how the Council responded here, because this is a late complaint and there are no good reasons why it could not have been made sooner.
7. In 2023 and then again in 2024, the Council replied to Mrs X’s requests for an update. It said at that point the parking bay was scheduled to be included when it next reviewed the Traffic Regulation Order (TRO) for her area, after it had completed local consultation. It said it could not tell her when this was due.
8. We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint. This is because we cannot direct the Council on how or when it carries out this action or direct it on TRO’s and therefore, there is no worthwhile outcome we can achieve.

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Final decision

9. We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because parts are late and there is no worthwhile outcome we can achieve in relation to the parts remaining.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman