Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about how the Council dealt with Mr Y’s vehicle crossover application because there is no evidence of Mr Y suffering significant injustice.

The complaint

1. Mr Y complains the Council was not transparent in its approach, when providing him an initial quote about the costs involved for his vehicle crossover.
2. Mr Y complains the Council replaced a lamp post outside his property and believes it should have reused the existing one when relocating this.

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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:

• there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating, or
• any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement.

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

4. 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 serious loss, harm, or distress as a direct result of faults or failures. We will not normally investigate a complaint where the alleged loss or injustice is not a serious or significant matter.

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How I considered this complaint

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

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My assessment

7. Mr Y made a vehicle crossover application to the Council. The Council provided a quote for the costings of this to Mr Y, and Mr Y paid this before any work was carried out.
8. To achieve the crossover, a lamp post located outside of Mr Y’s property needed to be relocated. Mr Y believes the original lamp post should have been used when relocating it. The Council explained to Mr Y that all lamp column relocations are done using new columns as the existing column cannot be used. I understand Mr Y may disagree. But the Council was entitled to decide the replacement was necessary.
9. Mr Y states the Council should have been more transparent about this, when initially providing a quote for his crossover. But I do not consider Mr Y has suffered any significant injustice as a result. The Council apologised and provided Mr Y with a cost breakdown of his quote. The Council was entitled to charge Mr Y for work required to achieve the vehicle crossover. He has not been charged any additional cost outside of the original quote and Mr Y was aware of the full cost before the work was carried out so he could agree to this before the work went ahead.

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Final decision

10. We will not investigate Mr Y’s complaint because there is not enough evidence of him suffering significant injustice.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman