Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s failure to enforce a breach of a premises licence. This is because there is not enough evidence of fault by the Council to justify investigating.

The complaint

1. Mr Y complains the Council has failed to enforce a breach of a premise’s licence, where music was being played after the times stipulated in the license.
2. Mr Y says the noise has affected his sleep, wellbeing and impacted his work. He says the breach of the license has caused continuing conflicts and has meant that he has had to move house.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
4. We investigate complaints of injustice caused by ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. I have used the word fault to refer to these. We consider whether there was fault in the way an organisation made its decision. If there was no fault in how the organisation made its decision, we cannot question the outcome. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended)
5. 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. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

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How I considered this complaint

6. I considered information provided by Mr Y.
7. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

8. Mr Y complained to the Council about loud music being played after 11pm at a licensed premises near his home, which was a breach of its licence. The Council visited the premises and reminded the license holder about the terms of the license.
9. Mr Y says after the Council’s visit, music continued being played after 11pm. So he made another report of noise to the Council’s pollution team. The Council in their complaint response says it asked Mr Y to provide evidence of the breaches by completing noise logs which he did not do. The Council says it still visited the building and reminded the licensee of the license conditions again.
10. After a few months the issue restarted, and Mr Y provided video evidence of music played after 11pm to the Council. The Council visited the building for the third time and advised the license holder about breaching the license and issued a formal warning.
11. Mr Y felt the Council had not followed its enforcement policy and failed to take proper enforcement action. Mr Y wasn’t happy with enforcement action taken. He says a review of the premise’s licence should have occurred.
12. The Council’s License Enforcement Policy follows a stepped approach to license breaches aiming to engage, explain, encourage and then enforce.
13. The Council has followed its policy as it has responded to each complaint Mr Y made about the licence breach and noise, and made efforts to investigate. The first two visits it followed the first steps of its policy in advising, engaging and encouraging the license holder to follow the terms of the licence.
14. When the Council received video evidence of the breach it took further action in line with its policy, which was enforcement. It did this by providing the written warning to the licensee.
15. According to the Council’s policy the warning it gave would be the first level of enforcement to recognise a more serious breach of the law. The warning letter warns more formal action will follow if the contravention continues. Therefore, the Council followed its policy by issuing the warning letter.
16. If the contravention continued after the warning letter, the next step for the Council would be to review the licence. There is no evidence of further reports of contravention after the warning letter.
17. As the Council considered the complaints made by Mr Y and decided in line with its enforcement policy, there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating. We will not investigate.

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Final decision

18. We will not investigate Mr Y’s complaint because there is not enough evidence of fault by the Council to justify investigating.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman