Oxfordshire County Council (23 008 868)
Category : Education > School transport
Decision : Closed after initial enquiries
Decision date : 15 Oct 2023
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about issues with home to school transport. The injustice is not significant enough and we could not add anything to the Council’s response or achieve anything more.
The complaint
- The complainant, whom I shall refer to as Mr X, complained about problems with his daughter’s home to school transport.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
- 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, or
- we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation, or
- further investigation would not lead to a different outcome, or
- there is no worthwhile outcome achievable by our investigation.
(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))
How I considered this complaint
- I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
- I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
- The Council has responded to Mr X’s complaints. It said it would contact the operator but there were conflicting events about the problems Mr X had reported.
- While I understand Mr X’s frustrations, we will not investigate his complaint. We only investigate when the person complaining has been caused significant personal injustice. That test has not been met.
- Also, Mr X’s daughter no longer receives free transport. We could not now add anything to the Council’s investigation or achieve anything more.
- If the Council re-started its transport and there were further issues then Mr X could make a fresh complaint.
Final decision
- We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because the injustice is not significant enough and we could not achieve anything more.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman