Summary: The Ombudsman will not investigate Mr B’s complaint about the Council’s response to his concerns about antisocial behaviour. Further consideration of the complaint is unlikely to find fault by the Council.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I shall Mr B, complains the Council refused his request for a community trigger and then did not tell him it was going to consider an appeal during a meeting.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate. We cannot investigate a complaint where the body complained about is not responsible for the issue being raised. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(1), as amended)
3. We investigate complaints of injustice caused by ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. I have used the word ‘fault’ to refer to these. 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 have considered the information Mr B provided and the complaint correspondence between Mr B and the Council. I sent a draft decision to Mr B and considered the comments he made in reply before I made my final decision.

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What I found

5. Mr B lives in a housing association property. He says he has suffered anti-social behaviour from a neighbour for the last four years. Mr B also complains his landlord issued a Community Protection Warning (CPW) and a tenancy warning letter to him.
6. The Ombudsman has no power to investigate complaints about how the housing association has dealt with Mr B’s reports of anti-social behaviour, or its decision to issue him with a CPW. These are decisions made by the housing association, rather than the Council and the Ombudsman cannot investigate.
7. The Council became involved when Mr B made a community trigger request. The community trigger can be requested to try and resolve complaints about anti-social behaviour. The information on the Council’s website explains the community trigger process can be used ‘…if an individual has complained to the council, police or social landlord about three separate incidents of a similar nature in the last 6 months and you consider that there has been no action taken.’
8. Mr B made a community trigger request to the Council in December 2018. He said he had three complaints about the way his landlord had dealt with anti-social behaviour. Mr B complained his landlord had not properly handled a complaint Mr B made in February 2017 and had issued him with a CPW in July 2017. Mr B also complained about the use of CCTV between August 2017 and March 2018.
9. The Council initially told Mr B his request did not meet the criteria outlined in paragraph 8. The Council referred Mr B’s request to the Anti-Social Behaviour Forum. The Forum confirmed in January 2019 that the outcome criteria for the community trigger were not met.
10. Council officers met with Mr B and confirmed the criteria were not met because the community trigger cannot be used to review historic complaints or poor service or hold landlords to account for actions they may or may not have taken. The Council confirmed Mr B’s complaints were late, but even if he had asked for the community trigger within six months, it was not the correct format to raise service complaints. The Council also explained it could not investigate how Mr B’s housing provider had handled an anti-social behaviour case.
11. In response to Mr B’s complaint, the Council has acknowledged there was some confusion with the way it dealt with Mr B’s appeal. This is because Mr B attended a meeting expecting to have the opportunity to present further evidence of anti-social behaviour by his neighbours. He did not know the meeting would be used as his appeal against the community trigger decision. The Council has apologised to Mr B for the confusion and said it will review how it deals with appeals.
12. While Mr B remains unhappy with the way the Council dealt with his community trigger request and subsequent appeal, the Ombudsman will not investigate this complaint. The Ombudsman cannot question whether the Council’s decision was wrong, only whether there was fault with the way that decision was made. Further consideration of the complaint is unlikely to find fault because the Council considered Mr B’s request, the criteria for a community trigger and clearly explained the reasons for its decision. The Council reviewed the decision and confirmed the reasons why the criteria were not met. As Mr B’s request for a community trigger did not provide details of three complaints he had raised with his social landlord in the last six months, there are no reasons for the Ombudsman to criticise the Council’s decision.
13. There is nothing further to be gained for Mr B by considering separate complaints about the process the Council followed when it dealt with his appeal, because there is no reason to conclude this affected the outcome of the appeal.

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Final decision

14. The Ombudsman will not investigate this complaint. This is because further consideration of the complaint about matters for which the Council has responsibility is unlikely to find fault.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman