Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about issues arising from a neighbouring children’s home as we are unlikely to achieve a worthwhile outcome by doing so.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains the Council did not appropriately deal with his complaints about issues being caused by residents at a neighbouring children’s home.
2. Mr X would like the Council to consider the complaint under the Statutory Complaints Procedure, to recognise that he has a representative in place and for the Ombudsman service to review the Council’s complaint handling procedures.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. 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 we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation, or there is no worthwhile outcome achievable by our investigation.

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

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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. Mr X raised a complaint about issues being caused by residents at a neighbouring children’s home. His complaint was raised on his and his wife’s behalf by a friend.
7. The Council initially declined to accept the complaint until it was satisfied with Mr X’s consent for the representative to raise the complaint. Following further correspondence, the Council accepted the complaint and responded to it.
8. The Council acknowledged there had been incidents which resulted in damage to Mr X’s property. The home had offered to cover the costs of the damage and to help to get the repairs done.
9. The Council met with Mr X and his wife and talked through ways they could try to ensure they could live alongside each other more easily.
10. The Council has acknowledged and apologised for the impact the issues have had on Mr X and his wife, and have put in place agreements to ensure that there is open communication between them and the home going forward. This is an appropriate response to the complaint raised.
11. Mr X’s representative raises issues with the complaints process the Council has followed. I have not seen any reason Mr X’s complaint should have been considered through the Statutory Complaints process rather than the corporate complaints process it has followed.
12. In any event, it is not a good use of public funds to investigate the Council’s complaint handling where we are not investigating the substantive issues.

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Final decision

13. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because we are not likely to achieve any worthwhile outcome by doing so.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman