Southend-on-Sea City Council (22 016 331)
Category : Transport and highways > Street furniture and lighting
Decision : Closed after initial enquiries
Decision date : 25 Apr 2023
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint that it took the Council three weeks to repair a streetlamp. Any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement.
The complaint
- Mr X complained it took the Council three weeks to fix a streetlamp after he reported it was not working. He said that made crossing the road difficult. He said the Council also delayed in responding to his complaint.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
- The Ombudsman investigates 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 may decide not to continue with 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))
How I considered this complaint
- I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
- I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
- 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.
- We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about the time taken by the Council to repair the streetlamp. That is because I do not consider Mr X has suffered a significant injustice. In addition, we would not consider three weeks a delay. Therefore, there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating.
- We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about how the Council’s complaint handling. It is not a good use of public resources to look at complaint procedures where we are not investigating the substantive matter.
Final decision
- We will not investigate Mi’s complaint because any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman