The Investigation

The complaint

1. Mr M complained the Council has not responded in any meaningful way to his reports of anti-social behaviour (ASB) by his neighbour, a council tenant, which includes persistent screaming and shouting at unsociable hours, threats, odours coming from his property, and possible drug abuse. Mr M says he feels unsafe in his own home and is unable to have visitors. He considers the Council should evict the neighbour and ensure he receives care appropriate to his needs.

Legal and administrative background

2. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this report, we 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. We refer to this as ‘injustice’. If there has been fault which has caused significant injustice, or that could cause injustice to others in the future we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)

Anti-social behaviour

3. Councils have a general duty to tackle anti-social behaviour (ASB). But ASB can take many different forms; and when someone reports a problem, councils should decide which of their powers is most suitable.

4. For example, they may approach a complaint:

• as an environmental health issue, where the complaint is about noise or pollution;

• as part of their duties as a social landlord, where the alleged perpetrator is a council tenant (although we cannot investigate the council’s actions as a social landlord); and/or

• using their powers under the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014.

5. The 2014 Act introduced six powers for agencies involved in tackling ASB. These are:

• the power to issue a community protection notice (CPN);

• the power to make a public spaces protection order (PSPO);

• the power to close premises for a set length of time;

• a civil injunction (a court order, which a council, or other agencies, can apply for);

• a criminal behaviour order (a court order made following a conviction); and

• the power for the police to disperse people from a specified area.

The anti-social behaviour case review (formerly known as the Community Trigger)

6. The Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 introduced a way to review the handling of complaints of anti-social behaviour (ASB). This is the anti-social behaviour case review, which was previously known as the ‘Community Trigger’.

7. When a person asks for a review, relevant bodies (which may include the council, police and others) should decide whether it meets the local threshold. Relevant local bodies should agree their review threshold, but the ASB statutory guidance says this should be, at a maximum, that a complainant has made three reports of ASB within six months.

8. If the threshold is met, the relevant bodies should carry out the review. They should share information, consider what action has already been taken, decide whether more should be done, and then tell the complainant the outcome. If they decide to take more action, they should create an action plan.

9. Asking for an ASB case review is not the same as making a formal complaint against a council for how it has handled reports of ASB.

10. We can only consider councils’ actions in an ASB case review. We cannot investigate or make findings about any contribution made by other relevant bodies, such as the police.

How we considered this complaint

11. We produced this report after examining relevant documents, including the Council’s internal records and its correspondence with the various relevant parties.

12. We also shared a draft copy of the report with each party, to allow them to provide their comments. We considered their comments before issuing our final report.

What we found

13. In 2024 Mr M purchased and moved into a flat. The following day he contacted the Council’s ASB team to report being disturbed by the behaviour of the resident of a neighbouring flat (Mr C), which included screaming, swearing and making threats to an unknown party, through the day and night. Mr M said he believed Mr C had mental health and possible substance abuse problems, and said the situation was making him feel unsafe.

14. Two months later Mr M wrote to the Council again. He said he had made several reports to the Council about Mr C’s behaviour, but it had not taken any action to date. He again described how Mr C would scream, swear and make threats to people, and that this made him feel unsafe. Mr M said he had recently called the police because of Mr C’s behaviour.

15. Mr M said he had been made aware Mr C was a council tenant, and that he had provided recordings of Mr C’s behaviour to the Council’s properties team, but did not have a response to this. Mr M again urged the Council to intervene in the situation.

16. On the same day Mr M emailed the Council’s ASB team again, reiterating his concerns about Mr C’s behaviour. He added that there were also foul odours coming from Mr C’s property, and that he was improperly disposing of rubbish inside the building. Mr M said he would take legal action against the Council if he continued to receive no response.

17. The following month Mr M wrote to the Council to request an ASB case review.

18. A council ASB officer wrote to Mr M the next month. She apologised for the delay in responding, and explained a housing officer was investigating the reports of Mr C’s behaviour. She asked Mr M to contact the housing officer directly, and said that “incidents of crime or ASB should be reported to the Police”.

19. Mr M contacted the housing officer the following day, attaching videos he had taken of Mr C’s behaviour. In early 2025, Mr M wrote again to the housing officer in the early hours of the morning, saying Mr C was currently screaming, swearing and making threats. Mr M expressed frustration at the lack of intervention by the Council and asked it to evict Mr C and seek help for him.

20. A few days later Mr M contacted us. We established he had not yet made a formal complaint to the Council, and we referred the case back to the Council for this reason. However, we did not receive any further information from the Council about its progress with Mr M’s complaint, and in April, we accepted it for investigation.

Analysis

21. In response to enquiries we made as part of our investigation, the Council has provided a chronology setting out the actions it took in response to Mr M’s reports.

22. In summary, this shows that, shortly after receiving Mr M’s first report in 2024, the ASB officer referred it to the housing officer. She did this again with Mr M’s subsequent report. The housing officer then visited Mr C, and arranged another visit the following month, although there are no records to show if this took place. Over the following months, the ASB officer sent repeated messages to the housing officer for an update whenever Mr M contacted her, but did not receive a response. This remained the case until June 2025, at which point the chronology ends.

23. We have no jurisdiction to consider how the Council has discharged its duties as a social landlord, including those relating to alleged ASB by one of its tenants. We therefore cannot comment on the housing officer’s role.

24. However, the Council’s powers to tackle ASB are much broader than its role as a landlord, as we have set out in a previous section. It is concerning the ASB officer’s response was to simply refer the entire matter to the housing officer to deal with. This implies a lack of recognition from the Council’s ASB team that it had its own part to play in addressing Mr C’s behaviour.

25. It is not for us to decide whether any of the incidents Mr M reported amounted to actionable ASB, nor what was the appropriate response for the Council to take. These are matters for the Council to decide. But the Council should be able to show it considered the evidence Mr M submitted, and explain the rationale for any decision it made to take, or not take, action.

26. Further to this, the ASB statutory guidance says (at page 29):

“It is good practice for agencies to assess the risk of harm to the victim(s), and any potential vulnerabilities, when they receive a complaint about anti-social behaviour. This should be the starting point of a case-management approach to dealing with anti-social complaints. The welfare, safety and well-being of victims must be the main consideration at every stage of the process. It is therefore important to identify the effect that the reported anti-social behaviour is having on the victim(s), particularly if repeated incidents are having a cumulative effect on their mental or physical well-being. A continuous and organised risk assessment will help to identify cases that are causing, or could result in, serious harm to the victim, either as a one-off incident or as part of a targeted and persistent campaign of anti-social behaviour against the victim(s).”

27. While this guidance is not mandatory for councils, given Mr M repeatedly expressed concern for his safety, on balance we consider it would have been appropriate for the Council to carry out a risk assessment as part of its response to his allegations, irrespective of any other decision it made. There is no indication the Council gave any thought to this.

28. We are also critical of the Council’s lack of response to Mr M’s request for an ASB case review. From Mr M’s comments, it appears likely he met the local case review threshold (which is that a person has made three reports within six months), and this meant the Council had a statutory duty to carry out the review. Again though, it did nothing.

29. We find the Council at fault for these reasons.

30. Even if the Council had investigated the matter, and had done so without fault, there are too many variable factors for us to speculate how the situation might now be different for Mr M. On balance, we cannot say the ASB would be resolved. However, the prolonged uncertainty, and the frustration and distress it has caused to Mr M, is a significant injustice in itself.

31. And this injustice to Mr M is aggravated further by the Council’s failure to respond to his complaint (the Council has now finally sent an initial response to Mr M, dated 1 October, but this post-dates the beginning of our investigation by a considerable margin).

32. In his complaint to us, Mr M said the outcomes he was seeking was for the Council to evict Mr C, and to provide him with the care Mr M believes he needs. We cannot recommend either of these outcomes – as noted, we have no jurisdiction to consider complaints about the Council’s decisions as Mr C’s landlord, and a decision about a person’s care needs is a clinical matter for the relevant professionals.

33. But there are several things the Council can, and should, do to remedy the injustice Mr M has experienced.

34. We have recently found similar faults on another case with regards the Council’s failure to consider its ASB powers. We are concerned this case might reflect a wider governance issue in how the Council delivers this service. As such, we consider the Council should report back to us on the actions it will take to improve its processes to act on reports of ASB.

Recommendations

35. The Council must consider the report and confirm within three months the action it has taken or proposes to take. The Council should consider the report at its full Council, Cabinet or other appropriately delegated committee of elected members and we will require evidence of this. (Local Government Act 1974, section 31(2), as amended)

36. In addition to the requirements set out above, to remedy the injustice caused, the Council has agreed to carry out the following actions within one month of the date of the report:

• write a formal letter of apology to Mr M, which explains what went wrong with this case, and to recognise the frustration, distress and uncertainty this caused him. We publish guidance on remedies which sets out our expectations for how organisations should apologise effectively to remedy injustice. The Council should consider this guidance in making the apology we have recommended in our findings;

• offer to pay Mr M £500 to acknowledge the impact on him of what went wrong;

• open an investigation into Mr M’s reports of anti-social behaviour. As part of this, the Council should carry out a vulnerability risk assessment of Mr M; and

• initiate an ASB case review.

37. Within three months of the date of this report the Council has agreed to:

• update us on its progress and actions in Mr M’s case;

• set out an action plan to improve its handling of reports of anti-social behaviour, addressing the problems identified in this report; and

• set out an action plan to improve its handling of complaints.

38. The Council should provide us with evidence it has complied with the above actions.

Decision

39. We have completed our investigation into this complaint. There was fault by the Council which caused injustice to Mr M. The Council should take the action identified in paragraphs 35 to 38 to remedy that injustice.

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