Summary: Mr T complains the Council delayed repairing several defective streetlights he reported and did not provide any updates. The Ombudsman upholds the complaint, due to the Council’s poor communications. The Council has agreed to our recommendations.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I shall describe as Mr T, complains the Council (and its contractor):
• took months to fix broken streetlights he reported, despite having a target time of 28 days;
• were poor in their communications with him, including updates;
• has a public facing map where many broken lights are not easily located. Mr T says this leads to a risk of confusion when someone is trying to report a broken light.

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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’. If there has been fault which has caused an injustice, we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)
3. If we are satisfied with an organisation’s actions or proposed actions, we can complete our investigation and issue a decision statement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 30(1B) and 34H(i), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

4. As part of the investigation, I have:
• considered the complaint and the documents provided by Mr T;
• made enquiries of the Council and considered its response;
• spoken to Mr T;
• sent my draft decision to Mr T and the Council and considered the responses I received.

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What I found

Legal and administrative background

5. The Council, as the Highway Authority, is responsible for maintaining highways in its area. Councils have a power, but not a duty, to provide lighting for highways. However councils have a duty to maintain lights that they have installed on their adopted highways.
6. The Council has contracted with a third party company to manage its street lighting operation and maintenance.
7. A resident can report a faulty streetlight using mapping software on the Council’s website. The Council’s Code of Practice for Street Lighting Maintenance says it aims to attend the site and repair a fault within seven or 28 days in accordance with the priority it assigns to a reported defect.
8. The Council’s Street Lighting Mini guide, for residents, notes it might take longer to plan some repairs, for example if there are cabling works or several streetlights to repair.

What happened

9. In late 2021 Mr T logged three reports of defective streetlighting. He logged two more in early 2022. He alerted the Council’s customer services about confusion with its map: that sometimes a streetlight did not appear on the map.
10. Mr T did not receive updates and some of the lights he reported remained unfixed. So a few months later he complained. The Council’s complaint responses:
• dealt with the specific issues with each of the repairs Mr T reported;
• explained that it had “switched off” the option of keeping streetlight dots on the map after it received a report, to prevent duplicate reports for the same fault;
• advised of various issues that might hold up repairs. But it accepted it should have advised Mr T of further investigations delaying some repairs;
• apologised for the continuing delays and advised it understood why this would be frustrating;
• advised it was improving its internal reporting processes and it was developing a large upgrade.
11. Mr T remained dissatisfied with the Council’s response, so he complained to the Ombudsman. In response to my enquiries, the Council advised:
• it had now repaired all the defects Mr T reported and the lights were working correctly; and
• advised some repairs might need cable investigations, which might need a road or footway closure. It needed to coordinate such repairs to minimise disruption to residents and businesses. Weather conditions sometimes also impacted on some types of work.
12. The Council also advised of steps it had taken to improve its feedback about faulty lights:
1. it had agreed a process with its contractor to identify repairs that would take weeks. It would share that information via its website;
2. its highways team had agreed a process with its corporate customer service colleagues to improve the content and frequency of updates;
3. it had designed some fault stickers for lamp columns. It would attach these to a column to advise the public it was aware of a defect;
4. it had requested that a sentence was added to its reporting map to say that if a light was not on the map, it meant it was aware of the defect and in the process of planning a repair;
5. its current management system closed jobs once raised. That led to problems with providing updates. It was introducing a new asset system that should improve updates back to the person who had reported the defect;
6. it was looking at what options other councils use, to help make improvements in its communications.
13. As part of my investigation, I checked for other decisions the Ombudsman has made about this Council. I found a decision from 2021 about repairs of defective lighting. In that complaint we found fault because of the Council’s lack of updates to the complainant. We recommended the Council explored a service improvement of how it could communicate better with residents about the repairs reported.
14. In response to my draft decision, the Council advised residents could:
• search for a light using the column reference, or by using the map. The map showed red dots for ‘live enquiries’ (ie a report already in its system);
• request updates via its map. But the process was reliant on information feeding through from different teams. The new operational system it was introducing would provide improvements to “…the overall flow of information”.

Analysis

15. The Council has explained why sometimes repairs might take longer than usual. A warning about this is on information available on its website. I accept there may be times unavoidable issues might hamper the Council meeting its own time targets. But when that happens I would expect the Council (or its contractor on its behalf) to provide an update to the person who reported the fault.
16. So I uphold this complaint due to a lack of updates to Mr T, including a lack of updates about the reasons for delays. The faults will likely have caused Mr T some unnecessary time and trouble and some frustration.
17. In terms of the wider picture, I note updates about repairs is an issue where Ombudsman has previously found fault with this Council. But in its response to my enquiries, the Council has outlined a series of steps that should improve its communications.

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Agreed action

18. I recommended that, within a month of my final decision, the Council write to Mr T apologising for the poor communications and updates to him.
19. My investigation found that problems with updates is an ongoing issue for the Council. So, I recommended that, three months after my decision, the Council provide the Ombudsman with a report, with evidence, on how each of its improvements, that I set out in my paragraph 12, are functioning.
20. The Council has agreed to my recommendations.

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Final decision

21. I uphold the complaint, due to poor communications with Mr T. The Council has agreed to my recommendations, so I have completed my investigations.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman