Summary: Mr B complains about the way the Council dealt with his reports of anti-social behaviour from his neighbour. The Ombudsman will not investigate the complaint because the neighbour has now moved away and an investigation will achieve no useful outcome.

The complaint

1. The complainant, who I refer to as Mr B, says over a considerable period of time he contacted the Council about noise nuisance from his neighbour. He says its response was inadequate and that the situation caused him stress and to feel overwhelmed.

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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’. We provide a free service but must use public money carefully. We may decide not to start or continue with an investigation if we believe:

• it is unlikely we would find fault, or
• the fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained, or
• the injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement, or
• it is unlikely we could add to any previous investigation by the Council, or
• it is unlikely further investigation will lead to a different outcome, or
• we cannot achieve the outcome someone wants.

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

3. We cannot investigate late complaints unless we decide there are good reasons. Late complaints are when someone takes more than 12 months to complain to us about something a council has done. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26B and 34D, as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

4. In considering the complaint I reviewed the information provided by Mr B and the Council. I gave Mr B the opportunity to comment on my draft decision.

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What I found

5. In 2017 Mr B complained to the Council about noise nuisance from a neighbour in an adjacent flat. The officer dealing with the case advised Mr B that he needed to complete and send in the diary sheets provided to him so the Council could start to build up a comprehensive case from his evidence and investigate the complaint further.
6. More recently, at the beginning of 2019, Mr B contacted the Council again about noise nuisance from his neighbour. He then complained to the Ombudsman. In response to our notifying the Council about the complaint, it explained Mr B had received support regarding the anti-social behaviour of his neighbour. However, it said that, unfortunately, although Mr B would contact the team to complain he would then fail to provide the required diary sheets or other information needed to progress the case.
7. As Mr B had not taken his complaint through the Council’s complaint procedure before coming to the Ombudsman, we referred the complaint back to the Council.
8. The Council wrote to Mr B on 11 March to advise that both its Community Safety Team and the Housing Team had made several attempts to address the issues he had raised and that the matter had been resolved by the neighbour moving away in February. It acknowledged Mr B’s concerns but concluded there were extensive records indicating it had taken all appropriate action and that it considered the matter closed.
9. The Council later clarified that it considered Mr B had effectively completed its complaints procedure because it had been engaging with him about a number of different issues at various levels, despite the difficulties it faced in getting Mr B to properly engage. It did acknowledge that it should have made clear to Mr B that following its 11 March letter he could go on to ask the Ombudsman to consider his complaint.

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Assessment

10. The restriction highlighted at paragraph 3 of this statement applies to the earlier complaints Mr B made to the Council about his neighbour. It would have been open to him to have complained to the Ombudsman back in 2017 and I see no grounds which warrant exercising discretion to investigate these earlier matters now.
11. With regard to the more recent noise nuisance complaints made by Mr B, the Council says it attempted to address the issues he raised even though he did not provide the necessary information helpful to any further investigation. Mr B’s neighbour has now moved away so no further investigation can be carried out by the Council. As this is the case, there is no useful outcome to be obtained now by a formal investigation by the Ombudsman.

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Final decision

12. The Ombudsman will not investigate this complaint. This is because the neighbour has moved away and an investigation will achieve no useful outcome.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman