Summary: The Ombudsman will not investigate Mr A’s complaint that the Council delayed repairing a street light, failed to explain the delay and failed to respond to his complaint about the matter. This is because the injustice caused to Mr A is not so significant as to warrant the Ombudsman’s intervention.

The complaint

1. The complaint, who I will refer to as Mr A, complains that the Council delayed repairing a street light close to his home, failed to explain the delay and failed to respond to his complaint about the matter.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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 fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained, or
• the injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement, or
• it is unlikely we could add to any previous investigation by the Council, or
• it is unlikely further investigation will lead to a different outcome, or

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

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How I considered this complaint

3. I have considered what Mr A has said in support of his complaint and in response to my draft decision.

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What I found

4. Mr A says a street light close to his home was faulty between November 2018 and March 2019. He says ward councillors made repeated requests for repairs during the period. He made formal complaints in February and March 2019 and says the Council failed to respond.
5. The Council says it has no record of Mr A’s letters. It also says it identified that the fault with the street light was the responsibility of the utility company, which has now carried out the repair. It has offered to apologise to Mr A that it was unable to contact him.
6. The Ombudsman will not investigate Mr A’s complaint. The lack of street lighting must have caused him a degree of frustration and inconvenience. But I think it is unlikely that any injustice this caused him was so significant as to warrant the Ombudsman’s intervention. Given that the street light is now working, investigation by the Ombudsman would be unlikely to achieve anything significant.
7. I have no reason to doubt that Mr A asked the Council to take action, or that the Council received Mr A’s complaints when it failed to do so. These matters are not in dispute and do not therefore require investigation. I also note that the Council has offered to apologise to Mr A for its failure to respond.
8. The Ombudsman does not normally investigate complaints about complaint procedures if we are unable to deal with the substantive issue. It is not a good use of public resources to do so. Given that the substantive issue does not, in itself, warrant the Ombudsman’s intervention, there are insufficient grounds for the Ombudsman to intervene to consider the Council’s failure to respond to Mr A’s complaints.

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Final decision

9. The Ombudsman will not investigate this complaint. This is because the injustice caused to Mr A is not so significant as to warrant the Ombudsman’s intervention.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman