Summary: We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint about the Council refusing to provide her children with free transport to school. This is because there is not enough evidence of fault.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I shall refer to as Mrs X, complained about the decision not to provide her children with free transport to school.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))
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 the complainant and the Council.
5. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

6. Mrs X has asked the Council to provide her two children with free transport to school (School Z). The Council refused because it said there was a closer school (School Y) to home. This meant the children were not eligible for free transport.
7. Councils must apply their transport policy when deciding entitlement to school transport. But they also have the discretion to consider exceptional circumstances. They must have a review or appeal process by which to do so.
8. Mrs X has appealed the Council’s decision. Mrs X referred to other families living close by who received free transport to School Z. Mrs X supplied information in support of her appeal including maps.
9. A senior council officer considered Mrs X’s stage 2 appeal. They considered the information Mrs X sent, and measurements taken from the Council’s own system. The Council’s policy says this will be used to measure home to school distances, rather than publicly available systems such as Google Maps. The senior officer confirmed School Y was closer than School Z to Mrs X’s home when measured using the Council’s system. They had also checked the eligibility of other families and their applications had been correctly assessed. The Council refused Mrs X’s appeal.
10. The Ombudsman is not a right of further appeal. We cannot question decisions where the proper process has been followed and if the Council’s decision making is not flawed. In this case, the Council correctly applied the law and its policy when it rejected Mrs X’s original application. It then considered her appeals in line with its published policy. It considered the information from Mrs X and reviewed her eligibility and that of other families. Different systems might lead to different measurements, and the distances to School Y and School Z are clearly similar. But there is not enough evidence of fault in how the Council has reached its decisions to warrant our involvement. We will not therefore investigate.

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Final decision

11. We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because there is not enough evidence of fault for us to question the merits of the Council’s decision.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman