Summary: There is no evidence of fault in the way the Council investigated the complainant’s reports of anti-social behaviour by his neighbour, in its role as both landlord and local authority. There is evidence that some council officers do not have a clear understanding of how its general anti-social behaviour powers work, which is fault, but there is no reason to believe this has affected how the Council handled the case. The Council should circulate guidance to relevant staff to clarify its powers, but we make no other recommendations.

The complaint

1. We will refer to the complainant as Mr C.
2. Mr C complains about the Council’s handling of his reports of anti-social behaviour by the occupier of a neighbouring flat. He says noise coming from the neighbour’s property, in particular that of a dog barking, but also noise from DIY, shouting and music, is disturbing and frequently prevents him from sleeping. Mr C says he has also been assaulted, threatened, and had his property vandalised by the neighbour. However, Mr C says the Council has not taken any effective action to tackle this.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman (LGSCO) investigates complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, 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’. Injustice may include distress, inconvenience or being put to avoidable time and trouble. If there has been fault which has caused an injustice, we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)
4. The Housing Ombudsman Service (HOS) approach to investigating and determining complaints is to decide what is fair in all the circumstances of the case. This is set out in the Housing Act 1996 and the Housing Ombudsman Scheme. The HOS considers the evidence and establishes if there has been any ‘maladministration’, including circumstances where a landlord behaved unreasonably, treated the complainant in an inappropriate manner or failed to comply with its obligations. (Paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme)
5. The HOS Dispute Resolution Principles are ‘be fair’, ‘put things right’ and ‘learn from outcomes’ – we will apply these principles when considering whether any redress is appropriate and proportionate for any maladministration or service failure identified.
6. When considering complaints, if there is a conflict of evidence, we make findings based on the balance of probabilities. This means that we will weigh up the available relevant evidence and base our findings on what we think was more likely to have happened.
7. If the LGSCO is satisfied with an organisation’s actions or proposed actions, we can complete our investigation and issue a decision statement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 30(1B) and 34H(1), as amended)
8. Following an investigation, the HOS may order a member landlord to take steps to put things right. (Paragraphs 54-55 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme)

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How we considered this complaint

9. Mr C’s complaint covers matters that fall into the jurisdiction of both the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman (LGSCO) and the Housing Ombudsman Service (HOS).
10. We considered evidence provided by Mr C and the Council as well as relevant law, policy and guidance.
11. We also shared a draft copy of this decision with each party for their comments.

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What we found

Mr C’s complaint

12. On 20 May 2025, Mr C submitted a stage 1 complaint to the Council. He said:

• he had been reporting and “thoroughly evidenced” anti-social behaviour (ASB) from his neighbour for many months, which had recently escalated to his being assaulted and threatened by the neighbour;
• he felt the Council had not used the powers available to it, instead focusing on “informal, lower level” interventions for several months;
• the Council had eventually served a community protection notice (CPN). However, he still felt this was insufficient and that tenancy enforcement action would have been appropriate; and
• he felt the Council’s communication with him had been poor and it had failed to consider his “needs and rights as the victim”.

13. The Council responded on 4 June. It said it had:

• investigated each incident reported by Mr C “thoroughly” and used appropriate tools and powers.
• served Mr C’s neighbour with a community protection warning (CPW) which it later escalated to a CPN;
• offered to install noise monitoring equipment in Mr C’s flat. However, he had declined this. Its offer remained open and it urged him to reconsider as it could not investigate the noise further otherwise; and
• tried to arrange a meeting with Mr C, but he had also declined this. He had also stated he no longer wished for the Council to contact him, or to provide it with further information about recent incidents.

14. The Council therefore did not uphold Mr C’s complaint.
15. Mr C then submitted a stage 2 complaint on 17 June. He complained:

• the Council continued to try and contact him and obtain further details about recent incidents;
• it would not be taking action over the incidents where he was assaulted and threatened unless the police brought charges; and
• noise recording equipment the Council had previously installed in his property was missing a part, and not set up so that he could operate it from his bed during nighttime noise nuisance.

16. The Council replied on 11 July. It said:

• it acknowledged it had contacted Mr C directly with a query regarding CCTV footage of an incident. While it felt it was reasonable to do so, this had not been in keeping with his request for it to contact him through his advocate;
• as the resident was refusing to engage with it directly, it had no option but to await the outcome of the police investigation into the alleged assault and threats;
• it had established a longer lead was missing from the noise recording equipment it installed in Mr C’s property, restricting the distance he was able to operate the equipment from. If he accepted its offer to install the equipment again, the Council said it could look to install it in a more convenient location, such as Mr C’s bedroom.

17. Mr C then referred his complaint to HOS and LGSCO on 31 July and 1 August respectively.

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Legislative background

18. Councils have a general duty to tackle anti-social behaviour. But ASB can take many different forms; and when someone reports a problem, councils should decide which of their powers is most suitable. For example, they may approach a complaint as part of their duties as a social landlord, where the alleged perpetrator is a council tenant; and/or using their powers under the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014.
19. 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.

Community protection notices

20. Councils and the police can issue community protection notices (CPN) to prevent anti-social behaviour which is unreasonable and having a negative effect on the community's quality of life. A CPN requires the behaviour to stop and, where appropriate, requires the recipient to take reasonable steps to stop it happening again. Not complying is an offence and may result in a fine or a fixed penalty notice.
21. Councils must issue a written warning in advance of a CPN (which is often referred to as a ‘community protection warning’ or CPW). The council should decide how long after the written warning to wait before serving a CPN. A person can appeal a CPN in the magistrates' court within 21 days of receiving it if they disagree with the council’s decision.

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

22. 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’.
23. 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.
24. 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.
25. 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.

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Analysis

26. The Council has investigated Mr C’s reports of ASB from its perspective as his landlord and that of the alleged perpetrator, but it has also relied on its general powers to tackle ASB in doing so. This means the Council’s investigation, as a whole, falls into the jurisdiction of both Ombudsmen, without any clearly separable elements.
27. For this reason, the following represents the consideration of both Ombudsmen.
28. Mr C says he first began experiencing problems shortly after the neighbour moved in, in approximately June 2024. The records we have seen show he first contacted the Council to report this in September 2024.
29. We have reviewed the Council’s full case file, documenting its investigation from that point, up to November 2025. The case file is very extensive and covers a long series of events. We cannot, practically, comment on everything that happened during the course of the Council’s investigation.
30. Overall, the Council’s investigation followed the pattern we would expect to see. It considered Mr C’s reports, gathered evidence, including noise recordings made by Mr C himself, carefully considered this evidence, and then decided on a course of action. It completed an ASB case review when Mr C applied for one, and carried out risk assessments of Mr B’s vulnerability at several points, which the Government guidance for ASB practitioners describes as good practice.
31. We acknowledge Mr C felt frustrated at what he saw as delays in this process, but unfortunately an investigation of noise and ASB can take time to complete properly. This is especially so when, as in this case, there are other potential sources of noise, which the Council must consider and eliminate. Having reviewed the Council’s case file, we are satisfied there is no evidence of undue delay by the Council, or periods where it did not maintain a reasonable level of contact with Mr C.
32. Having served a CPW on the neighbour in November 2024, we note the Council then initially decided not to escalate this to a CPN in January 2025. However, we consider it took this decision properly. The Council’s notes show the housing case officer referred the case to its Public Safety and Regulation (PSR) team, where an officer assessed the more recent evidence of noise it had gathered, but decided it did not meet the threshold for escalation at the time because of the limited volume.
33. We acknowledge Mr C did not agree with this, but it is not the role of the Ombudsmen to make operational decisions on the Council’s behalf, or substitute the professional judgement of council officers with our own views. We may only criticise the Council where there is evidence of procedural errors. There is no such evidence with respect to this decision, and so it was a decision the Council was entitled to make.
34. While we are, therefore, broadly satisfied with the Council’s handling of this matter, we do have some concern, because of apparent confusion about the way the Council’s ASB powers work.
35. In April 2025, the housing case officer referred the case again to the Council’s PSR team, to reconsider escalating the CPW to a CPN (which, on this occasion, it approved). But, in the referral email, the officer asked for the case to be “allocated as a statutory noise nuisance”.
36. Mr C’s complaints of ASB are, predominantly, about noise, and so the Council could legitimately consider this under the statutory nuisance regime. But if the Council had found there was a statutory nuisance, then the law would have required it to serve an abatement notice. The case officer’s referral to PSR was instead to consider serving a CPN, a different power.
37. Then, after PSR had approved the CPN several weeks later, the housing case officer noted its management had decided it would “now not be dealing with this as a statutory noise nuisance case”. The officer’s note does not explain the rationale for this.
38. A similar issue arose a few weeks later. In this case, a different housing officer wrote an email to Mr C’s advocate, in which they said:

“Public Safety and Regulation have confirmed that if issues persist and if the CPN is alleged to be breached, they would require further evidence to investigate the possibility of a section 80 being served under the Environmental Protection Act 1990.”

39. “Section 80” is the part of the Environmental Protection Act covering the service of abatement notices. Again, this is a different power to the CPN. The sanction provided by the law for breaching a CPN is prosecution in the magistrates’ court, not the service of an abatement notice.
40. The officer continued:

“If the CPN/other options fail to succeed, then may need to look at another form of action including tenancy enforcement action alongside this, but ultimately the goal is to stop the ASB/nuisance from occurring therefore hopefully the CPN will serve this purpose.”

41. It is unclear what the officer meant by the CPN ‘failing’ (or what the “other options” were). But, again, if the neighbour did not comply with the CPN, the Council would then have the power to prosecute them, which the officer does not appear to have recognised.
42. Taking these comments together, we consider they show a lack of proper understanding by the Council’s housing officers in how its ASB powers work.
43. There is no suggestion any of this had a material impact on Mr C’s situation. The Council served a CPW in good time, and escalated it to a CPN when it considered it appropriate. It has not prosecuted the neighbour, but the Council has made clear to Mr C it needs him to continue cooperating with it in order to gather evidence for it do so, which Mr C refuses. There is no reason to believe this would have happened differently, if the housing officers had a clear understanding of the Council’s ASB powers.
44. Nevertheless, given the significance of ASB to their role, it is important the Council’s housing officers clearly understand the range of powers available to it, and particularly the distinction between statutory nuisance and ASB.

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Action

HOS recommendation

45. The landlord (on behalf of the Council), should circulate guidance, and consider arranging refresher training, for members of its Safer Living Team on the Council’s general ASB powers and the processes behind these and how these relate to its housing management powers.

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Final decision

46. We have completed our investigation with a finding of fault which did not cause injustice.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman