Essex County Council (18 019 544)
Category : Transport and highways > Street furniture and lighting
Decision : Closed after initial enquiries
Decision date : 09 May 2019
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: The Ombudsman will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about defective street lights. The lights are now in operation and the remaining injustice to Mr X is not sufficient to justify our involvement.
The complaint
- The complainant, whom I shall call Mr X, complains about three street lights that he says were out of operation for several months. Mr X also says the Council has lied to him about how council tax is spent in his area.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
- We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word ‘fault’ to refer to these. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint. I refer to this as ‘injustice’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We may decide not to start or continue with an investigation if we believe the injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement, or it is unlikely further investigation will lead to a different outcome (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)
How I considered this complaint
- I have considered what Mr X said in his complaint and background information the Council has sent to me. I have considered the comments Mr X made in response to my draft decision.
What I found
- Mr X complains that three street lights in his street were not working for around six months.
- The Council advised Mr X that there were electrical faults with the lights which had been referred to the electricity company but that it had no control over when the work would be done. Mr X was not satisfied with this explanation and complained to us.
- The street lights have now been fixed.
- Mr X also complains the Council lied to him about how council tax is spent in his area.
Analysis
- The lights are now working. Any remaining injustice to Mr X is not sufficient to justify our involvement. Mr X is also not caused a significant personal injustice from what the Council has told him about how council tax is spent.
- For these reasons, we will not therefore investigate.
Final decision
- We will not investigate as any remaining injustice to Mr X is not sufficient to justify our involvement.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman