Summary: Mr X complains about the service he received when he contacted the Council. There was fault by the Council which caused Mr X an injustice. However, the Ombudsman closed the complaint because the Council already took action to remedy the injustice.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I refer to here as Mr X, is dissatisfied with the service he received when he contacted the Council about an anti-social behaviour matter.

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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, or
• there is another body better placed to consider this complaint, or
• it would be reasonable for the person to ask for a council review or appeal.

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

3. If we are satisfied with a council’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. I considered the complaint and background information provided by Mr X and the Council. I discussed matters with Mr X by telephone. I sent a draft decision statement to Mr X and the Council and invited their comments on it.

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What I found

5. The Council is responsible for coordinating responses to requests from the public for a ‘community trigger’. A community trigger is a review of an antisocial behaviour case by a Community Safety Partnership. The review is a multi-agency case review involving various agencies such as the Police, the local authority, housing association and NHS.
6. Mr X telephoned the Council because he wanted to speak with a community safety officer to initiate the community trigger process. A message was taken by the Council with the intention to pass it on to the community safety officer. However, the officer was away on bereavement leave. This meant the officer did not pick up the message and no one at the Council acted on the matter.
7. Before the officer returned from leave, Mr X made several telephone calls to the Council chasing the matter. Mr X told officers he spoke to on the telephone that he did not have access to emails because of the closure of a local library. However, officers then wrote to him by email.
8. Mr X says one of the officers he spoke on the phone was rude, obstructive and used an indignant tone. On another occasion, an officer told him he would receive a call back from the Council by the end of the day but there was no call back.
9. The community safety officer acted on Mr X’s community trigger request when he returned from leave. The officer apologised because the Council had not acted on his request. The officer told Mr X there had been changes internally to prevent the problem from happening again. The officer sent the community trigger response to Mr X by email.
10. Mr X was dissatisfied with the response he received from the community safety officer. He made a further complaint about the response as well as his encounter with the officer whom he alleges was rude.
11. The Council’s final complaint response did not add substantially to its first response. It clarified its response times for complaints and apologised because it did not make Mr X aware of the timescales. It also apologised because it wrote to Mr X by email even though he had informed officers he did not have access to emails.
12. Mr X says he still cannot get a call back from the community safety officer or his team. He queries why Council staff cannot take messages, pass on details or even know what the community trigger is.
13. Mr X received a response from the Police to his antisocial behaviour query. So even though he still does not have access to his emails and so did not read the community safety officer’s November email, he is otherwise aware of the response of the community safety partnership to his community trigger request.

Analysis

14. The Council already accepted there were some failings in the service it provided to Mr X. The Council apologised for those failings.
15. The Council’s apologies present the appropriate remedy for Mr X’s understandable frustration with the service he received. I acknowledge Mr X still does not have access to emails but I do not see value in asking the Council to resend the November 2020 email from the community safety officer by post now. The community trigger incident has moved on since and Mr X is aware of the outcome of the trigger by other means.
16. I am satisfied the apologies were sufficient to remedy Mr X’s sense of grievance. Given the Council’s apologies, I will close this complaint because the Council has already acted to remedy the injustice to Mr X.

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Final decision

17. There was fault by the Council. The Council apologised to Mr X. I closed the complaint because the Council already acted to remedy the injustice.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman