Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about events around the Council issuing a community protection warning. This is mainly because any injustice is unlikely to be significant enough to justify our involvement.

The complaint

1. Mr X says the Council issued a community protection warning (CPW) against him and his wife without any prior discussion and then did not listen to Mr X’s version of the events. Mr X says that this has left him and his wife feeling harassed, bullied and victimised. He wants the Council to consider their version of events and apologise for the stress caused.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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 there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating, or any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement, or further investigation would not lead to a different outcome. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. CPWs warn people the Council believes are acting antisocially to change their behaviour or the Council may serve a community protection notice (CPN). Breaching a CPN is a criminal offence, but breaching a CPW is not. It is good practice for the Council to speak to the recipient before issuing a CPW, but it does not have to do so.
6. The matters that led to the Council issuing the CPW to Mr X and his wife had been ongoing for some time. The Council knew about some police contact with Mr X. The Council tried to visit Mr X seven days before issuing the CPW, but Mr X was not at home. The Council then issued the CPW after it received information about another incident of conduct it considered unreasonable. The CPW said Mr X and his wife should stop acting in certain ways.
7. I recognise that Mr X is unhappy the Council chose to issue a CPW without speaking to him first. However, there was no requirement to do so. The Council’s policy on antisocial behaviour allows it to serve a CPW without prior discussion if it considers it necessary in the circumstances.
8. I appreciate Mr X and his wife were distressed to receive the CPW. But the CPW did not, in itself, place any legal restrictions on their actions or penalise them. If the Council were to go on to issue a community protection notice, Mr X would then have a right to appeal to a court. Therefore, the Council’s lack of contact before the CPW is unlikely to have caused significant enough injustice to Mr X to warrant us investigating.
9. Some of the Council’s CPW wording was unclear on what the Council wanted Mr X to do. This is unlikely to have caused significant injustice to Mr X because the Council confirmed the correct position with Mr X eight days later and then ensured the CPW was re-issued with the correct wording. Any investigation by us is unlikely to achieve much more than this.
10. Mr X says the Council failed to listen to his version of events. However, it is unlikely that Mr X would have suffered significant injustice if this was the case. The Council cannot get involved in private civil disputes. The Council issued the CPW in response to specific incidents of Mr X’s behaviour listed in the notice. There is nothing to suggest that the changes in behaviour the Council sought to achieve would cause Mr X significant daily inconvenience or would be very different from normal expectations of behaviour. So I do not consider the CPW and related events have caused Mr X significant enough injustice to warrant us investigating.

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Final decision

11. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint. There was no fault in the way the Council served the CPW. Also, any injustice from the serving of the CPW or related events is unlikely to be significant enough to justify our involvement.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman