Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about the Council’s decision not to do highway improvement works on his road. There is not enough evidence of fault in the Council’s decision-making process to warrant us investigating.

The complaint

1. Mr X lives on a residential road. He complains the Council has not agreed to his requests for it to take action to reduce speeding, aggressive driving and the amount of traffic on the road.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6))
3. We cannot question whether a council’s decision is right or wrong simply because the complainant disagrees with it. We must consider whether there was fault in the way the decision was reached. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

4. I considered information provided by Mr X, and the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. We can only go behind a council’s decision if there is clear evidence of fault in the process they have followed to reach it which, but for that fault, a different decision would have been made.
6. In response to Mr X’s concerns about the road, the Council reviewed its latest records of road traffic incidents there. Officers found there had been one collision involving personal injury in the three years leading up to January 2019. They compared that information against their policy on highway improvement schemes. The policy prioritises schemes using reported collisions causing injuries, and gives greater weight to incidents involving serious injury or vulnerable road users. Officers determined Mr X’s road, compared with other roads, should not be prioritised for highway improvements. Given Mr X’s concerns about speeding, officers said they would ask the police to monitor the speed of traffic on the road and enforce where appropriate.
7. Officers gathered the relevant information and applied the Council’s policy to make their professional judgement decision not to prioritise works to Mr X’s road. They also referred his concerns about speeding to the police, which is the relevant authority to deal with that issue.
8. There is not enough evidence of fault in the Council’s decision-making process here to warrant us investigating. I recognise Mr X disagrees with the Council’s decision. But it is not fault for a council to properly make a decision with which someone disagrees.

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Final decision

9. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because there is not enough evidence of fault in the Council’s decision-making process to justify us investigating.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman